youDevise, a web-based technology provider, has launched HIP Enterprise, an online portfolio management system for fund of hedge funds and fund administrators.
HIP Enterprises new front office tools combine with youDevises original middle office capabilities to offer a gamut of front, middle and back office fund administration services through the web, such as modelling and analytics, reporting and valuation, data maintenance, trade settlement and security pricing.
Traditionally, hedge fund administration entails the manual loading of software and updates. HIP Enterprise is offered through cloud delivery via the web, requiring no installation, automatic upgrades and 24/7 access.
Speaking to GlobalCustodian.com, Richard Koppel, HIP co-developer and managing director of youDevise, said: Many of the competing products require a software installation. [HIP Enterprise] is of particular benefit to administrators and custodians who want to make the service available to their clients, without the need to install software at their clients sites. There is no administration involved in distributing software you install the software once, centrally and it is available to anyone who has an ID and password.
Koppel admits that youDevises timing was lucky: We began developing HIP in 2005, when web delivery of applications of this type were beginning to become popular, and when it was possible to deliver in a secure manner a complex application of this type. There were a number of products in the market at that time, and they had been delivered at a time when web delivery was less popular and less practical. In 2010, HIP Enterprise is the industrys only cloud based platform.
Koppel also believes the ease of accessing a service online will be of benefit for the industry. [Clients] are generally funds of hedge funds or small companies, they are not sophisticated from an IT standpoint, and they appreciate the simplicity of a web-based application.
Large clients have already signed up to the HIP platform. In January 2008, Northern Trust announced a partnership with youDevise to integrate the HIP system onto Northern Trust’s single, global technology platform, and a second fund administrator will be announced in the coming months. Half a dozen funds of hedge funds also use the service directly. We believe the service offers greater value if a fund of hedge fund uses it through an administrator, because the administrator does much of the data maintenance that the fund of hedge funds would have to do themselves, continued Koppel. But there are fund of hedge funds that prefer to use it directly rather than through their administrator they use it as a sort of check against their administrator as a shadow accounting system.
HIP Enterprise is based on youDevises HIP 2.0, which youDevise has rebranded as the HIP Pro solution for smaller funds. HIP technology is currently being used by funds of hedge funds with an aggregate of $45 billion assets under management. HIP is an acronym for hedge fund information provider.