Buy-Side Technology Awards 2014: Best Buy-Side Compliance Product—Charles River Development

Most CIOs and CTOs lament the fact that compliance-related issues have taken up the bulk of their firms' IT budgets and operational and technology focus. Since the financial crisis of 2008, regulation has enveloped the global financial services industry and firms are struggling to find ways to do more than simply tick the box when it comes to regulation-they are looking to improve their internal processes in order to become more efficient on the compliance front, while simultaneously easing cost pressures.

Tom Driscoll, global managing director at Burlington, Mass.-based Charles River, says asset managers are turning in droves toward the vendor's software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering through Charles River Compliance.

"Demand has jumped for SaaS-based services and global compliance rule-writing services," he says. "The numerous regulatory changes in North America and Europe have significantly stepped up activity across institutional managers of all sizes in those regions."

To address this demand, Charles River introduced its Compliance-as-a-Service solution in June. The hosted offering allows asset managers to improve compliance operations and risk controls while supporting growth without having to worry about regulatory issues. The cloud-based platform provides start-of-day data necessary for portfolio compliance functions and an integrated rule set that draws in regulatory measures on a global basis. Users can opt for Charles River's data inputs or choose to include their own reference and benchmark data.

Compliance is integrated into Charles River's flagship offering, the Charles River Investment Management Solution (IMS), although the module can also be operated as a standalone component. It is designed to help asset managers reduce intra-day risk by validating rules at any stage of the trading lifecycle.

Demand has jumped for SaaS-based services and global compliance rule-writing services. The numerous regulatory changes in North America and Europe have significantly stepped up activity across institutional managers of all sizes in those regions. - Tom Driscoll.

Over the last 12 months, Charles River has added support for CESR 10-788, CFTC 4.5 and Dodd-Frank swap clearing requirements; it has integrated risk metrics for value-at-risk (VaR), ex-ante, and other risk models; it has added improved compliance workflows for portfolio managers and traders; and it has introduced a new dashboard for compliance monitoring.

"This allows our clients to be confident in their automated compliance monitoring and risk management, which ultimately improves efficiency and saves them money," Driscoll says.