Custom Integration Development in New York City

Financial Services / Asset Management

A New York alternative asset manager ($8.5B AUM across hedge fund, private equity, and real estate strategies, 280 employees) operated 14 core systems that were poorly integrated — creating manual processes, data inconsistencies, and operational risk. The systems: (1) Portfolio management system (Geneva — SS&C) for position tracking and accounting. (2) Order management system (Bloomberg AIM) for trade execution. (3) Risk management platform (RiskMetrics/MSCI) for portfolio risk analysis. (4) Compliance system (ComplySci) for employee trading and regulatory compliance. (5) Investor reporting platform (custom-built) for quarterly LP reports. (6) CRM (Salesforce) for investor relationship management. (7) Fund administration portal (external administrator — Citco — web portal and file exchange). (8) Prime broker portals (3 prime brokers — Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan — each with different connectivity). (9) Market data (Bloomberg, Refinitiv — real-time and reference data). (10) Accounting system (Yardi — for real estate portfolio). (11) Document management (SharePoint). (12) HR/payroll (ADP). (13) Expense management (Concur). (14) Wire transfer system (bank portal — manual entry). The integration problems: (1) Trade flow was fragmented. Trades executed in Bloomberg AIM required manual entry into Geneva (portfolio accounting), manual notification to prime brokers, and manual entry into the risk system. Average time from trade execution to full system update: 4-6 hours. For fast-moving strategies, 4-6 hours of lag between execution and risk visibility was operationally dangerous. (2) Cash and position reconciliation consumed 35 hours weekly. Operations staff reconciled positions between Geneva (internal accounting), prime broker statements (3 different formats from 3 primes), and the fund administrator (Citco). Discrepancies averaged 45 per week — each requiring investigation. Most were timing differences (trades booked internally but not yet settled at the prime), but 5-10% were genuine errors requiring correction. (3) Investor reporting required 3 weeks of manual effort quarterly. Assembling quarterly LP reports required extracting data from Geneva (performance, positions), the CRM (investor details, commitments), the real estate system (Yardi — property valuations), and the document management system (supporting documentation) — then manually formatting into the investor reporting template. (4) Regulatory reporting was a fire drill. SEC Form PF (quarterly for large advisers) required data from portfolio management, risk, and accounting systems — assembled manually in spreadsheets. Each quarterly filing consumed 120 hours of analyst time. (5) Wire transfers were manual and error-prone. Capital calls, distributions, and expense payments were entered manually into the bank's wire portal — requiring dual authorisation and manual reconciliation. 2-3 wire errors per quarter (incorrect amounts or routing) created operational and reputational risk.

We built a comprehensive integration layer over 16 weeks, connecting all 14 systems. (1) Trade Flow Integration: automated real-time trade flow from execution to all downstream systems. The integration: captured trade executions from Bloomberg AIM via FIX protocol, enriched trade data with reference data (security master from Bloomberg, counterparty data from the internal database), routed enriched trades simultaneously to: Geneva (position and accounting update via API), risk system (real-time position update for risk calculation), compliance system (trade surveillance feed), and prime brokers (allocation instructions via FIX to Goldman and Morgan Stanley, file upload to JPMorgan). Trade flow latency: under 30 seconds from execution to full system update (from 4-6 hours). Zero manual trade entry. (2) Reconciliation Automation: automated daily reconciliation across internal and external systems. The integration: pulled position and cash data from Geneva, all 3 prime broker portals (automated extraction — each with different API/file format), and the fund administrator (Citco — SFTP file extraction), normalised data into a common format, performed automated matching (position-level reconciliation across all sources), identified breaks with classification (timing difference, corporate action pending, genuine error), auto-resolved timing differences (matched against T+1/T+2 settlement expectations), and escalated genuine breaks to operations with full context. Reconciliation time: reduced from 35 hours/week to 4 hours/week (operations team reviewing AI-identified genuine breaks only). Break investigation time: reduced from 45 minutes average to 10 minutes (pre-classified, pre-investigated by the automation). (3) Investor Reporting Integration: automated quarterly LP report assembly. The integration: extracted performance data from Geneva (by fund, strategy, and investor), pulled investor details and commitment data from Salesforce, extracted real estate valuations from Yardi, assembled data into investor report templates (per each LP's reporting preferences — some required ILPA-standard formats, others had custom requirements), and generated draft reports for portfolio manager review. Quarterly reporting time: reduced from 3 weeks to 3 days. (4) Regulatory Reporting Integration: automated Form PF data assembly. The integration: extracted required data from all relevant systems (positions from Geneva, risk metrics from the risk system, investor data from Salesforce, leverage calculations from prime broker data), mapped data to Form PF XML schema, performed internal consistency checks (ensuring data from different systems reconciled before filing), and generated Form PF draft for compliance review. Form PF preparation: reduced from 120 hours to 15 hours per quarter. (5) Wire Transfer Integration: automated payment initiation with dual control. The integration: generated wire instructions from fund accounting events (capital calls, distributions, expense payments), populated the bank's wire portal via API (eliminating manual entry), enforced dual authorisation (maker-checker workflow), reconciled completed wires against accounting entries, and maintained complete audit trail. Wire errors: zero in the 12 months following deployment (from 2-3 per quarter).

Trade flow latency: under 30 seconds end-to-end (from 4-6 hours). Zero manual trade entry across all systems. Reconciliation: 4 hours/week (from 35 hours). Breaks requiring investigation: reduced from 45/week to 8/week (timing differences auto-resolved). Investor reporting: 3 days (from 3 weeks). Form PF preparation: 15 hours (from 120 hours). Wire transfer errors: zero (from 8-12 annually). Operations team: reduced from 18 to 11 through attrition — remaining team focuses on exception handling and process improvement rather than data entry and manual reconciliation. Operational risk: significantly reduced — no regulatory findings related to data accuracy or timeliness in the subsequent SEC examination. Annual value: $2.8M (operations staff reduction), $1.4M (faster reporting — reduced overtime, reduced external consultant costs for quarterly filings), $850K (operational risk reduction — avoided wire errors, regulatory findings, reconciliation failures) = $5.05M. Development cost: $420,000. Payback: under 31 days.