There is a clear need within the counterparty risk manager community for more tools and better access to data related to credit risk analytics, according to Jonathan Di Giambattista, managing director of risk and performance analytics at Fitch Solutions. Di Giambattista bases his judgement on a recent survey of 85 counterparty risk managers in buy side firms carried out in October last year by the solutions provider owned by ratings giant Fitch.
Following on from the signing of its first client of 2010 for its Algo First solution earlier this month, Algorithmics is counting on the move from a pure quantitative approach to risk to spur on further client interest this year. Firms are gradually moving towards more of a balanced quantitative and qualitative approach to risk, especially as a result of new regulations in this space, explains Penny Cagan, managing director of credit and operational risk content at Algorithmics, to A-Team Insight.
BNY Mellon Asset Servicing has invested in its client and regulatory reporting systems as a result of valuation and regulatory changes such as FAS 157 and FAS 132R-1, explains Chris Richmond, managing director of global product accounting for the fund administrator, to A-Team Insight. This has involved a significant investment in automating the upload of non-standard pricing sources and the scrubbing of same security prices from multiple sources, he elaborates.
Valuations solution vendor SuperDerivatives has bagged its second client of the year in the form of custodian and fund administrator Fortis Prime Fund Solutions, which has opted for the vendor’s revaluation service to source pricing for illiquid and complex derivatives. According to Amod Kumar, global head of strategy, business improvement and control at Fortis, the bank selected SuperDerivatives because of its ability to cope with illiquid and esoteric assets, an increasingly important corner of the market with regards to providing data transparency.
Following SunGard’s upgrade of the technology platform underlying FastVal last year, SunGard has netted its first client of 2010 for the valuations solution in the form of global fund administrator Columbus Avenue Consulting. The firm, which is focused exclusively on the hedge fund market, is the first client to go live on version 3.0 of the platform, says Gavin Lee, chief operating officer of SunGard’s FastVal business unit.
Following the signing of a strategic marketing agreement with interdealer broker Icap last month (see coverage 
A-Team Insight Exchange is a new event series for 2010, which will combine A-Team’s expertise in financial markets IT with thought leadership from world-class technology innovators and practical experience from financial market practitioners.
Calypso Technology will be focusing on reaching the more traditional end of the buy side spectrum this year, as these firms continue to invest in alternative instruments and seek out a suitable risk management solution provider, explains Dave Wong, senior market specialist at the vendor. Pension funds and the institutional investment community are dabbling more and more in alternatives and they are hard pressed to deal with the risk management challenges and thus need a provider that can cope with the complexity of these instruments, he claims.
Loading ...
