Following a rebrand earlier this year and a spate of new hires, investment management solution vendor DST Global Solutions has added a new data management and analytics platform for public pension funds to its portfolio. Jamie Verrengia, performance solution manager for the North American region, explains that its enterprise data management (EDM) platform has been combined with performance measurement and risk analytics tools in order to increase transparency and improve operational efficiency for these US-based funds.
The pitch, as with most vendor offerings at the moment, is that public pension funds will be able to reduce their overheads via the consolidation of data processes onto one platform. This will also allow these funds to achieve greater transparency through consolidated views of multiple sources and managers and increase the efficiency and improve the quality of board reporting, claims the vendor.
“Public pension funds and other asset owners are faced with the need for greater process and exposure transparency. As they move into more complex investment strategies, increased use of derivative instruments, further employment 130/30 strategies and active currency management, the oversight requirement continually grows in complexity. Our platform and expertise deliver the client centric and client specific solution necessary to help equip and empower pension funds and asset owners for the challenges and opportunities ahead,” contends Verrengia.
The solution therefore purports to enable funds to better understand and measure investment return and manage counterparty risk through a complete view of all their exposures. It also aims to provide a more timely oversight of actual asset allocation relative to policy and allow funds to evaluate the performance of external and internal managers via new visualisation tools and analytics.
The platform is available as an in-house deployment or as a hosted solution; the vendor is seemingly hedging its bets in a market where some seem keen to outsource whereas other view this option as too risky. However, the vendor is likely to be angling for funds to opt for the hosted solution as it would provide greater opportunity for customer retention in a tough competitive environment.
Hosted solutions seem to be experiencing a bit of a resurgence at the moment, as firms try to find vendor partners to help them cope with the changing market and regulatory environment with fewer headcounts. DST has therefore been talking up the benefits of this method of deployment, such as removing the time and expense associated with building and maintaining IT infrastructures.
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