BUY-SIDE TECHNOLOGY AWARDS: Best portfolio accounting platform: Advent Geneva

Throughout the past decade, Advent Geneva has doggedly gone about setting itself up as something of a gold standard when it comes to investment management accounting platforms. The product has accordingly done well at the Buy-Side Technology Awards, dominating the category every year since 2007. Through Advent’s ongoing product development efforts and responsiveness to client requirements, the scope of Geneva’s functionality has expanded beyond core accounting to broader portfolio management processes covering back- and middle-office operations.

Earlier this year, the firm released Geneva 8.0, pushing the system’s coverage across multiple strategies and portfolios. Enhancements include more intuitive and customized interfaces, stronger out-of-the-box connectivity to other third-party systems as well as counterparties, a customizable trade entry blotter supporting trade allocations, and trade lifecycle management capabilities.

Perhaps most importantly, Geneva 8.0 facilitates greater firm-wide awareness of back-office data issues by providing real-time views of portfolio data. Middle-office and trade-support personnel can more effectively monitor failed and unconfirmed trades, while portfolio managers can access information pertaining to cash balances and real-time profit-and-loss (P&L) impact. In addition, users can monitor real-time counterparty risk in addition to which assets are held by which counterparty.

Each of Geneva 8.0’s enhancements correlate to particular market-, regulatory- or risk-related pressures that asset managers and hedge funds find themselves dealing with following the credit crisis. This level of responsiveness by Advent to Geneva clients’ evolving needs demonstrates the vendor’s ability to maintain the product’s top-tier status. —SE

JUDGE'S COMMENT
Advent’s Geneva has a huge client base with robust functionality, flexible enough to support the needs of both the smallest and largest investment management firms in the industry.

ADVENT REACTION
“Advent is honored to receive this award, which underscores the compelling value that Geneva delivers to firms of all sizes and strategies. These accolades follow the release of our Geneva eight series, which introduces new functionality and enhancements and takes the product to the next level, solidifying its position as the industry-leading solution in this space. We have continued to invest significantly in product development to ensure that our products and services keep pace with both changing market conditions and customer demand. These awards reflect Advent’s 27-year history of innovation and reliability, and the superior benefits that our clients derive from our suite of solutions.”
—Pete Hess, president, Advent