Electra Moves into the Fee Calculation Space While Eze Castle Integration Lifts Apps to the Cloud
(Editor’s Note: This week we focus on new offerings from Electra Information Systems and Eze Castle Integration, and a challenge from SWIFT’s Innotribe group.)
Electra Debuts Quantum Fee Calculation System
Post-trade solutions provider Electra Information Systems has officially moved into the fee calculation and invoicing realm with the launch of the Quantum software system that targets complex portfolios beyond the reach of outdated spreadsheets, officials say.
Electra officials are targeting the Quantum system to replace outdated fee billing processes that can cause institutional investment managers to lose money unless the accounting workflows are streamlined and operational risks are minimized via improved fee billing, invoicing analysis, accounting and reporting.
Electra’s product history is in providing settlement and reconciliation offerings that require the collection of key data, which caused clients to ask for more, says Ian Danic, managing director at Electra.
After conferring with clients, Electra decided automated fee calculation and invoicing was good idea given that Electra already collects a lot of market value information and holdings for its post-trade offering, Danic says. End-user firms are eager to move away from spreadsheets and manual systems to calculate the fees they could charge their clients; they also want automated billing processes.
Electra reviewed its options and decided to acquire a system and a team of people from one of its clients, Danic says. “Then we went to work to make it our own,” he adds. Electra spent a year adding features and facilities and working with early adopters. The result, the Quantum service, is offering as a hosted or installed system.
“The thought is that we could bring the same kind of automation for reconciliation to bear on fee calculation and invoicing processes, and eliminate a lot of manual intervention,” Danic says. “It extends what we do to the next logical step.”
Eze Castle Integration Launches App Cloud for Vendors
Mark Coriaty,
director of strategic services,
Eze Castle Integration
Financial application vendors that do not want to develop a cloud computing infrastructure can now turn use the services of Eze Castle Integration, a provider of hosted and private cloud services that has just deployed Eze App Cloud platform.
The Eze App Cloud service, based on the company’s Eze Private Cloud offering, enables application providers to combine their software with a cloud infrastructure and then offer this software-as-a-service to their clients, says Mark Coriaty, director of strategic services for Eze Castle Integration.
But the Eze Private Cloud service starts with end-user firms and is targeted at developing cloud solutions particular to their needs, Coriaty says. But with the Eze App Cloud, Eze Castle Integration is working with vendors to enable them to deliver their wares via a cloud. “It was kind of reverse engineered,” he says.
Vendors can use the Eze App Cloud to simplify application deployment and management, and to exploit Eze Castle Integration’s private network links to more than 400 buy-side firms and direct connectivity to key trading counterparties, officials say. The Eze Castle Integration support also helps vendors overcome international deployment barriers for the hedge funds.
Coriaty declines to name the vendors that will be using the Eze App Cloud.
SWIFT Kicks Off 2013 Innotribe Startup Challenge
Just in case it was missed, Innotribe, the SWIFT group devoted financial technology initiatives, announced last week the launch of the Innotribe Startup Challenge 2013, a year-round competition that will introduce financial industry decision makers and early-stage investors to the innovations and emerging companies that are poised to transform the industry.
The Challenge will include three regional showcases in the US, Asia and Europe. Industry professionals will pick five of the companies as finalists: three start-ups and two growth-stage innovators for each of the three events to present at Sibos—SWIFT’s annual conference—in Dubai in September.
The Innotribe Startup Challenge is open to start-ups and growth-stage companies established within the last three years delivering technology-based innovations in financial technology, financial services and related fields. To be eligible, start-ups must have a working prototype and less than $1 million in revenue or investment. Growth-stage companies must introduce innovations that have not yet been publically announced, officials say.
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