Waters Rankings 2017: Best Portfolio Management System Provider—RiskVal Financial Solutions

Jordan Hu, RiskVal’s CEO, says the company has seen a lot of interest in its products of late, particularly around RVPortfolio, due to its ability to be delivered as either a hosted or enterprise platform.

“We are growing dramatically and are now even looking for new offices,” Hu says. “A lot of our clients have constraints on their budgets, so they view having in-house solutions as a lot of cost to absorb. When we offer an application solution where we handle all the support, it’s a lot more cost-effective for them.”

As the financial services industry has seen cost pressures intensify through regulatory reform, portfolio managers are being forced to make faster investment decisions, and as such, are developing a reliance on meaningful and accurate numbers. Hu believes RiskVal’s focus on bringing together the front and middle offices solves that issue.

Bridging the two areas helps to fully integrate risk and paint a holistic view of the portfolio, Hu says, and differentiates RVPortfolio from its competitors. This lets both portfolio managers and risk managers share the system and, he suggests, stops infighting over profit and loss. RiskVal also offers real-time portfolio figures allowing managers to see how their investment strategies are working, and adjust them if necessary.

The company expanded the platform’s scope this year, moving from a mostly fixed-income focus to include equities too. Aside from fixed income, rates and equities, RVPortfolio also covers credit, commodities and foreign-exchange instruments.

RiskVal is hoping to bring more value to its customers by integrating certain pre-trade risk assessment functionality into RVPortfolio, which has previously been exclusive to the company’s other products.

“We are introducing a new risk framework into RVPortfolio that is already folded into our other products,” Hu says. “We also work closely with portfolio managers to see where the risk is coming from so we can figure out where we can enhance our offerings to fit their needs.”