SimCorp Enhances Alternatives Offering for its Dimension Platform

One of the biggest enhancements is the addition of the Alternative Investment Manager, which allows buy-side firms to automate processes in order to better handle illiquid investment types, such as for private equity, real estate and infrastructure, as well as more traditional alternative investments. It is fully integrated with the platform’s Investment Book of Record (IBOR). Users can also configure a dashboard of assets where they can edit transactions and positions, track performance, and access granular data for investment decisions.

Hugues Chabanis, product manager for alternative investments at SimCorp, says client demand is leading the vendor to grow its alternatives suite of solutions. 

“As part of SimCorp’s long-term strategy, alternative investments is one of SimCorp’s strategic priorities, as client feedback and industry expectations forecast consistent and long-term growth for this asset class,” Chabanis says. “SimCorp clients, too, are looking for granular functionality as their exposure grows from handling alternative investments as an additional instrument type to having whole teams dedicated to it.” 

Interest in alternative investments has been growing, according to a survey commissioned by SimCorp and conducted by WBR InvestOps, which showed that 34 out of 100 buy-side firms believe alternative investments are the most challenging to support.

Chabanis says firms traditionally use specialized systems—blending internal workarounds with several different third-party applications—to handle different types of investments, which results in a complex and unwieldy system. Because the Alternative Investment Manager module is built into Dimension, users do not have to toggle between applications. “They do not need to handle alternative investments on a separate application,” he says, allowing them to manage support and costs for their varied investments from a unified platform.

Other updates to the Dimension platform include a new strategy manager to meet requirements for the European Union’s Solvency II Directive—which requires insurance firms to hold a certain amount of capital to reduce insolvency risks—that lets users simulate different strategies and actively manage capital requirements. It also added functionality to comply with the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II) rules around real-time trade reporting and order record keeping. Another update is the integration of collateral management workflows to the front office so portfolio managers can block positions.

SimCorp makes two major enhancements to Dimension per year. The next update will be rolled out in August.