SS&C Eze
SS&C Technologies’ Michael Hutner talks to Jenna Lomax about Eze’s established and developing software, as well as its continuing work with Liontrust Asset Management
For those who are not familiar with SS&C’s Eze offering, what does this part of your business provide, specifically for investment managers?
We help investment managers and firms automate their investment operations and provide them with tools to support their investment processes — from idea generation through to settlement, and everything in between. We develop advanced trading tools such as automated trading, rules-based order routing, execution management features, alongside back-office accounting, and pre-, intra-, and post-trade compliance. Our solutions span the entire firm and offer configurable alerts and notifications. The key differentiator is interoperability; tight integrations between our products and other tools and applications create a seamless experience for our clients.
But Eze is not just a software provider. We also offer managed strategic services which can help clients navigate new business challenges, alleviate resource constraints, or manage critical middle and back-office activities, including daily trade reconciliations and allocations and maintaining their security master and static data. These kinds of service offerings allow clients to expand the footprint of their firm and more easily scale up or down.
Clients’ needs are constantly changing. But the combination of our technology and expert support enable managers to make the strategy and workflow adjustments necessary to be agile in changing markets.
How has Eze helped investment managers through the current economic uncertainty utilising its order and execution management capabilities?
When I hear “economic uncertainty,” I think of volatility and performance — which, ultimately, is the uncertainty of performance.
In times of volatility, it is essential to be able to see the markets, make decisions quickly, and execute them effectively. SS&C offers this visibility in our tools through the real-time aggregation of data consolidated across a variety of systems. In addition to visibility, this allows teams to simultaneously view the same data, resulting in real-time collaboration and eliminates friction caused by clients needing to swivel between multiple applications. It also reduces data flow friction across the investment lifecycle, enabling easier workflows, fewer mistakes, and better speed-to-market.
On the performance side, we enable clients to better scale through the order and execution management capabilities within our system, no matter their size of business or remit. Some of the world’s largest and smallest firms use our products. But no matter the size of a firm, better performance equals growth and its associated challenges. Whether this means adding strategies, increasing automation, or carrying out new operations, we can help.
When considering volatility and performance, security and reliability are critical, especially when things are changing or information is flowing fast. At SS&C, we adhere to the most stringent cybersecurity requirements and have spent millions of dollars ensuring we are always keeping up with the standards set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
I understand that not all firms can afford this level of security, nor do they always have the resources available to go through the certification process of making sure they have the right information security tools. However, from SS&C’s perspective, security is key to dealing with economic uncertainties and the issues that come up surrounding them.
Data is starting to be identified as an asset in itself. What has been your experience at SS&C, what is your view on this notion?
I completely agree, data and information are the most important assets in our industry. At SS&C, we gather data and configure it in an easily digestible and usable form, which can be as simple as pulling the data into an in-grid editing tool, so that all the data is there ready to deliver actionable insights.
It also goes back to interoperability — taking data from different sources and tools and putting it together via application programming interfaces or flat files, among other programmes.
Traditionally, aggregating and integrating data was very time consuming. Across the financial industry, a lot of money, time and resources were dedicated to this effort. However, at SS&C, we can bring it all together in a single, connected system, giving clients actionable insights to make better and more informed decisions — ultimately using data to create alpha.
The Eze part of the business hosts Eze Marketplace, which offers, among other things, market intelligence and transaction cost analytics. How are both these factors helpful to clients at a time of so many cost constraints for many buy-side firms?
We are very excited about the launch of Marketplace. This technology is about maximising value and generating the highest returns at the most efficient cost — which is critical for every asset manager. All buy-side firms need accounting features, order management tools, risk management, transaction cost analysis (TCA) and research management.
With Marketplace, we are trying to provide firms a turnkey solution for all of the above, particularly in the areas in which firms need further development: notably, market intelligence and transaction costs.
If we can, we will plug their existing third-party solutions into our product — enabling clients to view third-party features within their SS&C interface. For example, if you click on a symbol, it will show up in the TCA window of the integrated solution. Or, if you click on a name or data point, you might see market intelligence alerts popping up within our system. And through front-end integration and single sign-on, clients can tailor their workflows and choose the best layout for their firm.
These third-party relationships also reduce client due diligence costs, as they do not need to assess each of these companies themselves. They know Eze vets the partners we work with up front and that all third-party companies will be reputable. It also saves them time in seeking out support. Should an issue arise, SS&C’s uniform support processes enable clients to call us to determine the cause rather than a third-party vendor.
Eze also offers Eclipse, a cloud-based front-to-back office platform for simplifying complex investment workflows that was established in 2018. How has the solution adapted in the last four years?
Eze Eclipse is a native cloud platform we built from the ground up with a modern architecture to support continuous delivery. We can innovate on the solution rapidly, without high-risk upgrades. Since the 2018 launch, the product has evolved tremendously. For the last four to five years, we have been rolling out new feature enhancements on Eclipse weekly. We have gone from having a few clients to having more than 200 asset managers, hedge funds and family offices currently using the product.
At SS&C, we invest significantly in research and development so we can keep rolling out new features for clients. The modern microservices architecture gives us the flexibility to take advantage of new and better technologies as they emerge, but it is not just Eclipse users that can benefit from these developments.
We are adding some of Eclipse’s architecture and features onto our other products. We will work across platforms to improve the release, while building and testing the processes of other platforms. In addition, we have a new mobile app that will be made available across platforms, beyond Eze Eclipse.
In May, Liontrust Asset Management continued its contract with SS&C Technologies, following Liontrust’s recent acquisition of Majedie Asset Management. What are the company’s plans with Liontrust in the near future?
Liontrust has been using our investment suite and execution management tools since 2016. During that time, they have grown their assets by more than £30 billion. Over the last six years, we have helped Liontrust onboard three of their asset manager acquisitions — the most recent being the Majedie Asset Management acquisition, in which we onboarded more than 20 users onto our platform.
We have definitely seen plenty of mergers and acquisitions happening in the asset management space. We do not expect that trend to stop; firms such as Liontrust want to have all their investment teams on the same platform for streamlined workflows and connectivity, up and downstream. I have met many of the senior managers at Liontrust, and things are going very well with them. They are going to continue to look at how they can use our platform across more advanced trading features.
