SimCorp, a leading provider of investment management solutions and services for the global financial services industry, today announced that Nordea Investment Management has gone live with new broker strategy functionality in SimCorp Dimension, with ten brokers. This has simplified the asset manager’s trading environment and made trading operations more efficient.
The broker strategy functionality is a new component in SimCorp Dimension’s Order Manager solution. It is based on taking industry standard FIXatdl files from brokers and directly rendering the relevant strategies on to the order ticket in SimCorp Dimension. This direct use of FIXatdl allows new or updated strategies from brokers to be made available to traders quickly and easily without any need for software updates. It places SimCorp at the cutting edge of broker strategy support.
Per Møller, global head of trading at Nordea Investment Management, recognizes the efficiency advantages: "Placing trades via FIX to execute broker algos directly from the SimCorp Dimension Order Manager blotter is quick and easy. We now have Tier-1 broker strategies embedded into our core STP order execution and post-trade processes, so there is no real need for other equity EMSs. Our traders can effectively execute increasing volumes this way, leaving them more time to work illiquid or special stocks.”
An additional benefit for SimCorp’s clients is that since orders are created from within SimCorp Dimension and the strategies are incorporated there too, a full audit trail of orders and associated strategy usage is retained. Strategy names are saved on related transactions so that this information can also be used in post-trade transaction cost analysis and other middle and back office related processes.
Any broker which uses FIXatdl can be supported by the new functionality. The brokers currently live with Nordea Investment Management include: BofA Merrill Lynch; Barclays; Deutsche Bank; Goldman Sachs; JP Morgan; Knight Capital; Morgan Stanley; Sanford Bernstein; and UBS.
Extensive verification of the new functionality has been of paramount importance. The testing of the process and first live usage has been via the London Stock Exchange FIX Gateway ‘LSE Hub’. Katherine Lachelin, product manager of the ‘LSE Hub’, says: “The broker strategies involved have been individually tested by SimCorp and the relevant brokers across the LSE Hub to ensure a rapid implementation and lower ongoing costs for our mutual clients. We are pleased to see the first client live, which shows that executing orders via broker strategies works seamlessly from SimCorp Dimension and over our network.”
SimCorp expects to make strategies available to traders from further brokers, including one more in Q2 2013. As new brokers come on board, or as brokers update or devise new algorithms, SimCorp will work in partnership with them, managing and certifying the testing of the FIXatdl files. This certification service provides SimCorp clients with an assured, out-of-the-box solution that gives them fast and hassle-free access to the brokers’ strategies that they desire to use.
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Enquiries regarding this announcement should be addressed to:
John Mayr, SimCorp Partner Management, +44 (0)20 7260 1903, john.c.mayr@simcorp.com
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About SimCorp
Since 1971, SimCorp has been providing investment and portfolio management software and services to the world’s leading investment managers, asset managers, fund managers, fund administrators, pension funds, insurance funds and wealth managers. SimCorp’s world-class software provides global financial organisations with the tools they need to mitigate risk, reduce cost and enable growth. SimCorp is a global company, regionally covering all of Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Listed on the NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen, SimCorp is dedicated to supporting the global investment management industry, its clients and its investors. For more information about SimCorp’s products, please visit www.simcorp.com/product.