Our Customer Spotlight series showcases the innovative ways our clients are using Xignite’s Cloud APIs to power their applications.
FIX Flyer develops advanced technology for managing complex, multi-asset, global institutional securities trading with over 170 clients worldwide, including UBS, Barclays, Berenberg Bank, GBM, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan.
They have pioneered several cutting-edge ideas such as applying the FIX Protocol standard to the wealth management industry, leveraging Equinix cross connects and the internet for trading, and helping emerging markets with low latency trading technology.
Led by Founder and Chairman George Kledarashas, FIX Flyer has been an Xignite client since 2008. We recently had a chance to sit down with George to learn more about trends in wealth management trading and how FIX Flyer is helping firms simplify their processes.
Q: What is “trading away” and why is it important for Wealth Management?
George Kledaras — Trading away is the practice of using partners other than your custodian for trade execution. It’s important for wealth managers because Continue reading →
Despite the proliferation of market data platforms and custom internal applications that have been designed to replicate or replace Microsoft Excel over the years, Excel remains arguably the most widely-used mission-critical application for financial services industry professionals.
Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and models are employed across a wide range of processes, from investment research and portfolio management to currency trading and loan processing, and just about everything in between. The common thread? They all require financial market data as an input.
What’s the best way to integrate market data into Microsoft Excel? Later in this article we’ll explain why a cloud-based market data solution provides an optimal combination of ease-of use and value. But first, let’s take a look at the most common ways market data can be integrated into Microsoft Excel. Continue reading →
In today’s environment of shrinking margins, it’s incumbent on wealth management firms and RIAs to ensure that they’re optimizing the value they receive across all vendor relationships. Market data expenditures, which represent a substantial slice of ongoing operating expenses for advisors, are no exception.
At most firms, market data is accessed within desktop terminals and Microsoft Excel. Firms will often have to pay a steep annual fee for terminal access, with extra charges incurred to access the same data within Excel via an Excel add-in.
While vendors have added a wide range of datasets to their terminals over time, that data comes at a price. Subscription costs for industry-leading market data terminals can run anywhere from $5,000 – $20,000 per user per year. Continue reading →
Over the last 5 years, more than a million mobile apps have been developed. (Source: NY Times). Mobile apps can be grouped into two categories. The first category consists of mobile apps created for the consumer market. The second category is custom mobile apps developed for enterprises. Enterprises create mobile apps to support their particular business needs and to create a competitive advantage. Enterprise mobile apps tend to be more complex to build, as the goal is to make PC-oriented applications work on mobile devices.
In this post, I explain the advantages Xignite’s financial API mash-up platform Splice provides in improving mobile app performance. Splice lets you create composite APIs by mashing and transforming other APIs. It also offers a visual designer where you can build the exact API you need to power mobile apps.
Advantage #1: Reducing Network Bandwidth
Network traffic is one of the biggest obstacles to mobile app performance. API mash-up tools like Splice let you reduce the amount of data returned, by letting you trim the output of APIs. This facilitates efficient memory utilization and improves mobile app performance.
Imagine you were developing a mobile app like OpenFin’s PNL tool, one that displays real-time financial market data. To get data, you would need to use the GetRealQuote operation from XigniteBATSRealTime. The data fields returned by this API are given below:
<Symbol>msft</Symbol>
<CompanyName>Microsoft Corporation</CompanyName>
<Date>3/28/2012</Date>
<Time>2:01:14 PM</Time>
<Open>32.55</Open>
<Close>0</Close>
<PreviousClose>32.52</PreviousClose>
<High>32.7</High>
<Low>32.16</Low>
<Last>32.16</Last>
<Change>-0.36</Change>
<PercentChange>-1.107</PercentChange>
<Volume>2442414</Volume>
<Bid>32.15</Bid>
<Ask>32.16</Ask>
<Spread>0.01</Spread>
<BidQuantity>9138</BidQuantity>
<AskQuantity>10621</AskQuantity>
For a mobile app, you might not need all the fields (for e.g. Volume, BidQuantity and AskQuantity). Essentially, you are transmitting more data than you need. A more efficient way Continue reading →
It’s no secret that we’re now living in an increasingly connected world, one where mobile devices are transforming the way that businesses communicate with customers and prospective customers alike. Investment management firms looking to market their fund offerings and engage retail investors are no exception.
Today’s increasingly savvy retail investors, armed with the latest smartphones and tablets, expect real-time market information wherever they are, whenever they want it. They’re using mobile devices to follow the markets, monitor their current portfolio, and perform detailed research on new investment opportunities, including mutual funds, index funds, and ETFs.
There are several upstart firms who have developed innovative mobile applications that cater to the retail investing segment such as StockTouch and Wikinvest. Also leading this effort in financial services are retail brokers such as Fidelity and Charles Schwab, who released their first mobile trading apps in 2010. Continue reading →
Investment management firms are among those facing an uphill climb to conform to the regulatory requirements of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. While legislators and lawyers are still busy sorting through the details of the controversial legislation, it is clear that reporting rules will be more stringent, requiring more transparent disclosure by asset managers.
Here are a few of the issues that will impact investment management reporting:
- To reduce systemic risk, regulators will require firms to provide more comprehensive information, and have it available on demand
- To the fullest extent possible, this information will need to be real-time or near real-time
- To comply with the above trends, firms will need to identify solutions that enable them to provide an enterprise wide view of activities, positions, and risk
Complying with these new regulatory requirements will be expensive, but will be less so if investment management firms can implement an enterprise-wide approach that provides the flexibility to conform to the rules of today as well as to an unpredictable tomorrow. Continue reading →
This is our second post in the HTML5 series. There are number of new tags in HTML5 that aid in the development of mobile financial apps. In this post, I aim to explain these new HTML5 tags and how they facilitate the building of fully functional financial apps with native user experience.
We partnered with our friends at OpenFin, to develop a HTML5-based mobile app. They developed a HTML5-based financial app (PNL tool) for the iPad. The app gets updated every five minutes and provides quotes for securities across multiple asset classes (stock, bonds, options and futures). The app was developed in 2 weeks flat. As they say, seeing is believing. To get a feel of how powerful HTML5 apps can be, download the app for free on your iPad.
The installation instructions and the download link for the HTML5 app are given below:
- On your iPad, visit: https://pnlhd.openf.in/app/pnlhd.html.
- Tap on the install button.
- Follow the 3-step instructions to install the mobile app.
In my last post, I outlined why HTML5 is a good platform for developing mobile financial apps. The key advantages that HTML5 provides are summarized below:
- HTML5-based financial apps work cross-platform and a single mobile app lets you support clients across all mobile platforms (you might need to optimize the mobile app to counter differences like screen sizes on different devices).
- HTML5-based financial apps let you take control of mobile app support, enhancing reliability, as you don’t have to depend on the platform provider (Apple store) for support.
- HTML5 mobile apps provide a very strong visualization interface that supports native user experience, making financial data far more intuitive.
- HTML5 mobile apps can be instantly deployed and updated in real-time, allowing you to constantly add new features and differentiate from competitors.
- HTML5 mobile apps are just as powerful as native apps, providing optimal performance required for financial apps.
- HTML5-based financial apps are secure, if HTML5 specifications are used in conjunction with security best practices.
HTML5 Tags & How They Aid Financial App Development
This section explains the HTML5 features we used, how they were used and the advantages they provide. Continue reading →
A key consideration driving financial advisors’ data management strategies is how to leverage data and technology to forge stronger client relationships. There’s been considerable buzz recently about emerging new technologies that have improved wealth management systems such as CRM and account aggregation. However, an area that’s still very much unexploited and rife with opportunity is the development of advisory-branded mobile applications.
The explosive growth of smartphones and tablets in recent years is accelerating, and is creating demand for all kinds of mobile applications. As of this writing the Apple App Store, the world’s largest app marketplace, boasts over 500,000 iOS applications for iPhone and iPad.
Interestingly, there have been only a handful of mobile applications released by wealth managers thus far. Expect that to change. According to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers Asia Pacific Private Banking Survey, nearly 50 percent of private banks surveyed expected to use mobile applications to interact with customers in the next two years. Continue reading →
In the wake of the recent financial crisis, wealth management clients are more focused than ever on the value financial advisors deliver. While portfolio performance has always been an important element in the calculation of value, customer service remains the most critical factor in retaining customer assets. And a fundamental component of customer service is developing highly customized investment strategies that better fit the needs increasingly skeptical, and often increasingly sophisticated clients.
The evolving mindset of wealth management customers
Why have wealth management customers become more skeptical? The market downturn revealed that many portfolios were not adequately calibrated to the risk their owners were willing to tolerate. Ensuring risk alignment is a critical component of wealth manager service, so these misalignments resulted in an erosion of trust in many financial advisor relationships.
In parallel with this erosion in trust, the ubiquitous availability of financial information and advanced trading capabilities has resulted in a more sophisticated breed of clients who are prepared to invest on their own behalf if they don’t perceive adequate value in wealth management services. These customers not only demand that investment and allocation strategies are fully aligned with their unique risk requirements, but are also looking for full transparency into potential risk factors and the market data that drives underlying investment decisions. Continue reading →
As investment management firms look to cut costs in today’s highly competitive environment, market data expenditures are an obvious target. One of the largest outlays within this cost center is market data terminals. The advent of market data terminals in the mid-1980s was a huge step forward, combining previously scattered market data into a single interface. However, this “one size fits all” approach is no longer in step with the diverging needs and budget concerns of investment management firms.
There is now an emerging trend towards “suit-to-fit” internal custom applications that focus on the unique requirements of various departments within a firm. These applications are often fueled by on-demand market data delivered over the cloud. When executed well, this combination delivers superior workflows that suit the firm’s exacting needs, while also reducing overall market data spend.
Why are market data terminals out of step?
Market data terminals don’t align with the evolving business needs of investment management. Terminals target the fat part of the bell curve, but as firms increasingly look to differentiate themselves with new strategies their needs become more unique, the curve flattens, and terminals become less relevant. In addition, in terms of data management, firms are moving towards a holistic and scalable approach that provides increased consistency and transparency, leaving behind legacy market data silos. Continue reading →
