Best evaluated pricing service provider/vendor—Infront

Product overview—Infront Quant

Infront Quant is Infront’s valuation, analytics, risk and regulatory offering. Germany-based quant and financial engineering teams own the valuation engines behind independent pricing for major European banks, asset managers, Master-KVGs, insurers and pension funds, across every asset class and liquidity profile from listed equities to exotic over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives.

Secret sauce

Infront cites what it describes as its “white-box approach” as part of its secret sauce. Clients are able to see inside every calculation, with level 1 and 2 reports providing all pricing parameters and model descriptions for each illiquid and OTC instrument. During validation, more than 10 price sources per instrument are analyzed on average, although clients only pay for one—the data they use. Infront’s coverage includes all asset classes and product types, which means clients do not need to manage/juggle multiple specialized valuation boutiques.

Recent milestones

• Launched RegFeed for custodian banks, a cross-asset valuation control platform with built-in audit trails. 
• Completed first client tests of intraday valuation and validation for real-time net asset value (NAV) under T+1 requirements.
• Integrated Infront IQ Risk modules directly into the firm’s Investment Manager front-end platform.

Future objectives

Infront plans to:

• Launch evaluated bond prices―market-consistent valuations across all fixed-income assets.
• Add the Stochastic Volatility Inspired model for equity, index, commodity and foreign exchange options.
• Broaden its pricing coverage into the renewables space, supporting valuation needs for this growing asset class.

Why Infront won

Ask any buy-side firm about its perennial bugbears, and you’re likely to hear something about the challenges it faces when it comes to pricing thinly traded securities where market data is either patchy or non-existent. That is Infront’s bread and butter, which wins this category on the back of its outstanding Infront Quant offering—a valuation, analytics, risk and regulatory service that provides European banks, asset managers, insurers and pension funds with independent pricing across asset classes and liquidity profiles. The proposition is particularly compelling for instruments where reliable valuations are difficult to establish, including illiquid securities and exotic OTC derivatives.

Key to Oslo-based Infront’s strategy is its white-box approach, which provides clients with visibility into how each valuation was produced, a critical function for all fit-for-purpose evaluated pricing services. Level 1 and 2 reports provide the pricing parameters and model descriptions behind every instrument, furnishing clients with the information required to scrutinize/challenge valuations and support their validation, audit and regulatory processes. Infront also analyzes more than 10 price sources per instrument on average during validation, while clients pay only for the data they ultimately consume. 

Infront has been busy enhancing its product/service line-up with a number of recent developments, including the launch of RegFeed, a cross-asset valuation control platform with built-in audit trails, and the first client testing of intraday valuation and validation for real-time NAV under T+1 requirements. The firm has also integrated its IQ Risk modules into its Investment Manager front-end platform. With evaluated bond pricing, new volatility modeling and expanded coverage of renewable assets all part of the product road map, Infront continues to broaden and further enhance a service built around transparency, high-quality valuations and broad asset-class coverage.