By Jennifer McMackin

Many investment managers’ trade reconciliation and other post-trade processes are still burdened with the inefficiencies of collecting, normalizing and validating data from third-party sources. A typical investment management firm receives numerous data feeds on securities, positions and transactions. This creates more work for operations teams to manage data and maintain provider links, while causing workflow and settlement risk and delays due to errors and manual effort.

Is this the best way to acquire and aggregate external data, and utilize your staff’s time and resources? Is your firm potentially missing out on opportunities to optimize processes and spend more time on strategic areas? Let’s explore the two main data aggregation challenges investment managers face and what they can do about it.

By Todd Sloan

Over the last few years, our clients across the investment management community have seen a heightened focus on operational due diligence driven by a surge of institutional money into hedge funds. In addition, several fraud cases have caused significant losses for even the savviest investors. Regulators are also shining a bright light on hedge funds as they have gained popularity across both retail investors and pension plans. Having the right technology and third-party relationships in place is more important than ever before.

By Scott Rhodes and Todd Sloan

When we think about the transition from office worker to home worker, we think first about IT security: “lock it down!” Unfortunately, that mantra misses the big picture. McKinsey & Company says the most valuable asset of a firm is its people, and it is the operations-intensive environment of investment management reconciliation that underscores this sentiment. The role of skilled people and automation at the center of mission-critical, post-trade processes is apparent from both the standpoint of security and business continuity to eliminate single or multiple points of failure. That means not only protecting the business from being harmed by others; it also means ensuring business operations remain robust and efficient.