A Q&A discussion with Electra’s SVP of Client Services, Paul Chung

How can buy-side investment managers best leverage technology to build a smart and collaborative reconciliation function in the face of unprecedented market volatility and volume? Electra’s Paul Chung explains the increasing importance of reconciliation to reduce risk and improve overall operations, and the technology and outsourcing capabilities that are positioning buy-side firms to conquer the next big operations challenges.

By Paul Chung and Jennifer McMackin

In the strains of operating remotely during an uncertain economic environment coupled with high market volatility and more stringent regulations, it becomes even more critical for investment operations managers to have automated and streamlined processes. High volumes of transactions and data is the new norm. The front lines of the industry have received plenty of expert advice to help firms address ongoing concerns of endowments, pension plans and other clients.

But how much attention has been paid to the back office and the important role it plays to support client interactions while also mitigating operational and compliance risk? How resilient will firms’ post-trade operations remain in remote work environments? Should firms outsource key parts of their reconciliation process to reduce the risk of multiple points of failure?

In recent years, and especially now, the asset management community is adopting Electra’s managed services for reconciliation and data aggregation. Here’s why.

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

Practical artificial intelligence (AI) use cases and applications in buy-side reconciliation and post-trade operations are prevalent, yet many have yielded uneven and questionable results. AI can go only so far to autonomously solve the operational problems investment management firms face. The solution? An intelligence augmentation (IA) approach to AI.