Sell-Side Technology Awards 2019: Best Sell-Side Technology Provider, 2019—Numerix

Numerix, by virtue of its wins in the best sell-side over-the-counter trading initiative (see page 68) and best sell-side credit risk product categories (see page 69), bags the most prestigious category of this year’s Sell Side Technology Awards, taking the New York-based risk specialist’s tally to three awards for 2019. The fact that no firm has won more than three categories in any of WatersTechnology’s awards since 2007 underlines Numerix’s achievement this year, joining SIX (2018), IHS Markit (2017), SmartStream (2016), Bloomberg (2015) and Markit (2014) as recipients of this award.  

Clearly, Numerix is in a good place right now and has been for some time, given its domination in recent years of the credit risk category in not only these awards, but across the Buy-Side Technology Awards, the Waters Rankings and the American Financial Technology Awards. And while it’s impossible to attribute success in this market to a single factor, Oneview, the firm’s flagship pricing, risk, analysis and trade management platform, has played a pivotal role in the firm’s fortunes since it was unveiled in March 2016. “When we started down the path toward achieving the vision for Numerix Oneview, we had a very clear understanding of how the underlying architecture could be built to apply to a wide range of use-cases within front-office trading and risk management,” explains Steve O’Hanlon, Numerix’s CEO. “It’s been this vision, plus the richness of Oneview’s feature set and usability within the software, that has brought us to this moment. We always knew how to get here, but it’s been a carefully sequenced journey.” 

It goes without saying that the provision of risk technology and ancillary services to capital markets firms is a mature and highly competitive market, arguably the most keenly contested of all functional areas across the industry. So what is Numerix’s secret to its enduring success and what specifically is it about Oneview that resonates with its clients? “Our secret sauce continues to be our analytics library and quantitative prowess,” O’Hanlon explains. “It’s the depth of these areas that bring real strength and substance to our solutions. We are very proud of our core analytics library, as well as the groundbreaking quantitative research and development that takes place here year in and year out.” 

As for new functionality and services, what is top of Numerix’s to-do list for the immediate future? “The continued proliferation of our solutions and services in the front office for the purpose of addressing business challenges is our focus,” O’Hanlon says. “It’s not about introducing new products/functionality, but about using the flexibility of the Oneview platform to solve new challenges for clients as they arise.”