Buy-Side Technology Awards 2016: Best Broker-Supplied Tool/Technology—UBS Delta

UBS walked away with the honors in this category last year, in addition to winning the best risk/portfolio analytics award for the breadth and depth of UBS Delta’s functionality, which it consistently enhances by virtue of the supporting team’s Agile methodology.

In a feature run by Waters earlier the year, Rizwan Saeed, head of technology at UBS Delta, explained that his team has been using an Agile framework since the platform’s inception, a strategy that was born as much out of logic and necessity as it was from a conscious decision to embrace the model. “If you take the practices that Agile promotes—high levels of engagement from end-users, short delivery cycles, continuous feedback, iterations, etc.—those are all things that Delta has been doing since day one,” Saeed explained. “We operate using a scrum-style process; we have a monthly release cycle, which means quick time to market; and we have developers, marketers, support and client services people all co-located, which means we have high levels of engagement throughout the development process.”

This early and often release cycle and close collaboration with UBS Delta’s users—both within UBS itself and the firm’s large numbers of buy-side clients—has ensured that they are provided with the functionality that they have specifically requested and not what UBS assumes they might want, enhancements that are delivered with minimal latency, in line with Agile objectives. It’s a strategy that has served the firm well over the years and one that other large sell-side organizations could learn from.

In terms of enhancements rolled out during the course of this year, in the first quarter, UBS Delta added new calculation-workflow tools based on scalable application server technology in order to speed up calculations, while also in the first quarter it enhanced the platform’s liquidity reporting functions, which now include multi-asset portfolio single-line, category and portfolio-level liquidity, days to trade, stressed liquidity, close-out risk, and transaction-cost analysis. In the fourth quarter of this year, UBS plans to roll out a number of new risk models, including its own cross-sectional equity risk factor model, high yield-specific models, and Monte Carlo models. 

This early and often release cycle and close collaboration with UBS Delta’s users—both within UBS itself and the firm’s large numbers of buy-side clients—has ensured that they are provided with the functionality that they have specifically requested and not what UBS assumes they might want, enhancements that are delivered with minimal latency, in line with Agile objectives.