Christy Bremner, senior vice president and general manager at SS&C Technologies, talks to Lucy Carter about Aloha’s use of artificial intelligence, what it offers to the market and what comes next
“The future of investment management operations has arrived,” proclaims SS&C Aloha’s website.
Aloha, an investment operations platform, covers all asset classes, uses a single data model and provides real-time updates.
Christy Bremner, senior vice president and general manager at SS&C Technologies, is enthusiastic about the platform and the progress it has made since launching in 2021. “We have come a long way in four quarters,” she reflects.
“Our client base is growing, and we are very focused on implementation for clients who have come onto the platform.”
Aloha has seen a score of new clients over recent months, with Philippines-based financial services provider AB Capital Group one of the most recent to onboard the platform.
A single data model
“The user experience has been a big focus of ours” says Bremner, commenting on why she thinks Aloha stands out from the crowd. It is “very easy to use, and brings the data that people are looking for to the forefront,” she adds, stating that “the single native data model is very important” to the platform.
Currently, many companies operate their front and back offices “through a number of bespoke solutions that solve different parts of that ecosystem,” Bremner explains. “They tend to get integrated, so you end up with a world of many different systems, lots of data movements and different user experiences.”
As a result, “most organisations will have data in many different places.” This in turn requires the reconciliation of that data in several locations to keep the front-to-back office functioning.
With Aloha, “whether you are carrying out front-, middle- or back-office activities, it is through one data model. You are not moving data around.”
Clients can therefore avoid “spending time and resources managing interfaces,” with the system designed to give each user what they need, wherever they are in the organisation — all through the same interface.
“We have this concept of operational health, which brings different elements of the system into one place,“ Bremner shares. This allows for increased visibility, with organisations able to more efficiently understand and address their processes. Pain points can be identified and user activity assessed, things which “are hard to get a handle on if there are many systems, lots of integration, and data in multiple places.”
Innovative technologies
Aloha is “delivered by the cloud rather than an on-premise legacy system,” further streamlining clients’ operations by avoiding the “lengthy upgrading processes” that software updates can require. The platform’s updates are “rolled out without any lengthy time frames and processes,” Bremner explains, evidencing her claims that the project is focused on “the technology side of things.”
Further proof of this is in Aloha’s use of artificial intelligence (AI), which is present throughout its system. With AI technology coming on in leaps and bounds over the past few years, it would be fair to say that many have jumped on the bandwagon.
In some cases, this has led to greater inefficiencies — new technology is added to platforms without a real purpose, confusing users and complicating operations.
SS&C has strived to avoid this and enhance processes with AI as needed. The company has invested heavily in AI, with several of its solutions leveraging some form of AI technology. SS&C Singularity, for example, uses machine learning and predictive analytics to increase efficiency, accessibility and transparency in middle- and back-office investment operations.
The company has published several whitepapers and articles on AI and its role in the asset servicing industry, discussing the need for automation and robotics while emphasising the importance of effective and efficient use cases when onboarding such technology.
“We have tried to focus on use cases that we think are really valuable to the user community [via Aloha],” Bremner asserts. One example of this is a bot, by which users can understand what is going on in their business via a mobile device. “It allows people to be less desk-bound,” she explains, something which will doubtless be well received in an increasingly decentralised workplace culture.
What’s next?
The most in-demand component of Aloha’s offerings has been the investment book of record (IBOR), Bremner reveals: “People are very focused on that as an area of upgrading within their organisation.” While other modules, such as reconciliation, are often adopted alongside it, the IBOR “has got the most interest so far.”
SS&C is keen to work with clients as it develops and evolves the platform, receiving “new and interesting ideas” from users on how Aloha can be helpful to them. “We are happy to take their feedback, because that is how you make the platform better,” Bremner maintains.
“There is always more to do, more functionality that can be built out,” Bremner assures. “We are continuing to enhance the platform, and we will do that over the course of 2023.”
