Advanced Financial Applications plans to expand its platform into asset classes outside of equities, such as credit derivatives and non-U.S. options.
“The firm is planning to add credit derivatives to its platform by year-end or the first quarter of 2009 because the cost of hedging a portfolio is being lowered through the use of derivatives, says Patrick Lynch, CEO, AFA.
The platform just expanded globally, so users of its execution management system can route and execute orders in 82 markets. AFA is providing direct market access to 24 European and Asian exchanges.
The firm is also in talks to integrate its order management system with the execution management systems of brokerages. It plans to provide similar services it has been offering Goldman Sachs’ REDIPlus EMS since December, which includes facilitating the allocation of trades to multiple prime brokers. AFA is also building out functionality on its OMS through creating better and faster linkages between its system and other service providers and focusing on portfolio modeling.