SunGard Online Investment Systems has acquired Massachusetts-based Protegent, a provider of supervision, surveillance, employee ethical practice and sales practice technology designed to help improve brokerage compliance operations. The acquisition, the terms of which were not disclosed, is not expected to have a material impact on SunGard’s financial results.
Protegent’s flagship application, BrokerAudit, aims to simplify the process of supervising the trading activity of registered representatives and investment advisors. It analyzes the quality of supervision and practice, provides a platform for effective suitability-based analysis, automates field audits, and responds on an ongoing basis to both regulatory and legislative challenges.
“Protegent brings to SunGard a deep understanding of the current regulatory environment and the complex compliance needs of today’s brokerage industry, as well as a breadth of compliance solutions,” says Paul Erickson, president of the expert solutions unit of SunGard Online Investment Systems. “The combination of Protegent’s BrokerAudit and our existing Synapse Surveillance solution will further extend our solutions to help our customers to better address their perpetually-changing compliance requirements.”
Protegent will join SunGard’s existing Synapse product suite, which currently provides expert behavior detection systems that automate compliance, supervision and transaction monitoring for brokerage and insurance firms. SunGard’s Synapse Surveillance is a real-time, rules-based system that aggregates data from multiple sources to analyze, score and identify transactions or accounts that could be in violation of regulatory, industry or company guidelines. Compliance officers and field supervisors use the integrated system to monitor transactions and employee activity across an enterprise, as well as to collaborate on identified issues to quickly take corrective action.
David Tilkin, former chief executive officer of Protegent and now executive vice president at SunGard Online Investment Solutions, adds: “With constantly increasing regulatory and legislative challenges, ethical practice controversies, and well-publicized regulatory fines, demand for brokerage compliance automation tools continues to increase. As more and more issues surface and security industry leadership looks to raise and maintain a high quality of practice, the need for technological flexibility, efficiency and rapid response is critical. The combined features, resources and skill sets of both Protegent and SunGard will help us to more quickly adapt to the changing needs of the industry. Together, we can provide a highly flexible, enterprise-class platform with the necessary features and rule set to help our customers improve regulatory compliance and reduce their risk.”