youDevise Limited, the provider of on-demand portfolio workstations for financial markets, has expanded the Straight Through Processing capabilities of its Hedge Fund Information Provider (the HIP) for the USD900 billion fund of hedge funds industry.
youDevise expects the HIP’s new Straight Through Processing (STP) interfaces will accelerate the movement away from manual processes in a segment of the financial services industry that has lagged in electronic processing. Launched in May 2006, the HIP is the first portfolio management system for solving critical fund of hedge fund (FoHF) management, risk, compliance and cost issues.
FoHFs regularly need to receive market data and exchange information with hedge funds, administrators (who serve both hedge funds and FoHFs), banks (who serve FoHFs), and investors. Throughout the industry, however, the exchange of information between FoHFs and their counterparties is haphazard, based on a combination of fax, telephone, email, snail mail and manual key-entry.
“These inefficient, relatively primitive means of communication do a disservice to what is otherwise a very cutting-edge industry,” says Richard Koppel, the Managing Director of youDevise. “They drive up costs, hurt the timeliness and accuracy of information available to funds of hedge funds for decision-making, and impair the quality of information available to investors.”
youDevise says they have incorporated standard STP interfaces into the HIP for receiving market data; for communicating interactively with hedge funds, administrators, and banks; and for enabling FoHFs to offer their own investors online access.
“These STP feeds keep fund of hedge fund managers and investors as up to date as possible on their trade confirmations, cash reconciliations, and intra- and end-of-month positions,” adds Owain McNeill, the Business Manager of Alternative Investments at youDevise. “Similar to the use of STP in other parts of the financial services industry, overall benefits include reduced manual and duplicate data entry, errors and settlement cycles; increased transparency, audit-ability and access to up to date information; faster query resolution; and improved customer service.”