Columbus Avenue Consulting (Columbus), a global fund administrator, has selected SunGards FastVal, a portfolio valuation solution delivered on an ASP basis, to help independently value its clients portfolios. SunGards FastVal provides financial institutions with full transparency of the models and underlying market data used in the valuation, as well as enhanced Greeks, greater functionality in the running of intra-day valuations, and comprehensive product coverage across all asset classes. Columbus Avenue is the first customer to go-live on FastVal 3.0, SunGards latest FastVal release.
Columbus chose FastVal to help it mitigate operational risk, enhance transparency and improve overall operational risk. FastVal will help Columbus to collect pricing and valuation data, with round-the-clock feeds from exchanges and other data providers. Up-to-date valuations can be generated up to four times a day. The solution provides access to underlying data and covers most financial instruments, meaning that Columbus is well-positioned to take on funds with more complex structures, as their business continues to grow.
Columbus is already a user of SunGards VPM portfolio accounting solution. Its selection of FastVal was based in part on FastVals direct integration to VPM. The integration between SunGards FastVal and VPM solutions will allow Columbus to pass up-to-date valuation and pricing data directly to VPMs general ledger, eliminating the need for various file conversions between disparate vendor platforms. This helps Columbus to consolidate and streamline its vendor relationships to help provide quicker time to market, as well as further increasing efficiency and mitigating risk around redundant data transfer.
We feel that the integration between the two SunGard solutions will save us a great deal of time, in addition to reducing the risks inherent in our manual data entry, says Bonnie Han, partner at Columbus Avenue Consulting. As our business grows, and we continue to take on funds with more complex strategies, it is essential for us to have a solution that can provide accurate, transparent pricing and valuation across our entire customer portfolio.
Investors are placing big demands on firms to provide greater transparency in the valuation of their portfolios, says Gavin Lee, chief operating officer of SunGards FastVal business unit. FastVal is well positioned to provide Columbus Avenue with the high level of transparency required to appease these demands.
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