FIS is a global financial services technology company, with a focus on technology, consulting and outsourcing solutions. FIS serves more than 20,000 clients in over 130 countries and employs more than 55,000 people worldwide. It is a Fortune 500 company and is a member of Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Its cloud-based Hedge360 platform provides a full suite of technology capabilities to support managed accounts, from fund administrators through to platform providers and hedge fund managers.
“With respect to the hedge funds, we’ve certainly seen a rising demand from fund managers offering managed account versions of their strategies,” says Trevor Headley, Head of Product Management at FIS. “They look to us to provide the technology that helps them a) run the managed account on the respective platform from a portfolio accounting perspective and b) allocate and split trades to provide a full, consolidated view across the portfolio, both from a valuation and a risk measurement perspective.”
Hedge360 integrates two best-of-breed solutions: Front Arena, a real-time, enterprise-wide platform for portfolio, trading and risk management used by some of the largest hedge funds and fund administrators to manage their multi-strategy portfolios. And VPM, a real-time, multi-currency accounting and investment management solution.
One of the key strengths of the Hedge360 platform, says Headley, “is that we recognise clients have a wide variety of requirements and different sensitivities to the way technology is managed. With some of our large hedge fund clients, who have the scale and internal expertise, we have the option of providing an on-premise platform solution to provide a seamless flow of information”.
“Most clients, however, look to us to provide a fully managed service whereby they leverage not only the full capability of Hedge360’s technology but also FIS as a key partner to deliver that technology.”
The rise of exotic asset classes such as bank loan strategies and direct lending strategies has become a key growth area for FIS. As Headley notes, Front Arena is extremely well suited to the trading, valuation and risk measurement of OTC derivatives, with all of the valuation capabilities built into the system from the ground up.
“We are taking solutions that have deep roots in these asset classes and the overarching mandate of Hedge360 is to bring them into one platform to make them more deliverable and accessible to hedge fund managers. It is opening up the market for us. With respect to bank loans, we have a product set that is plugged in to key data providers to support clients and we are currently closely evaluating the direct lending space to see how our capabilities can be enhanced,” states Headley.
Technology capability and the capacity to deliver are key features of any leading MAP technology provider. In that regard, FIS is one of the largest technology providers on the Street. That, says Headley, “gives us credibility but also the capability to deliver best-in-class technology, consulting expertise, and the ability to operate much more as a full-service provider.
“Hedge fund businesses become slightly more complex as they take on managed account mandates. We see true value in being able to service, not just the platform providers, but also individual hedge fund clients who are running these managed account strategies alongside their flagship funds,” says Headley.
On winning this year’s award, Headley comments: “We are very happy to be recognised by Hedgeweek’s readers for what we are doing both from a platform technology perspective, and empowering end clients. This is an area we are highly committed to and value.”
