As a technology provider to financial firms, how often have you felt “nearly there” on client requirements, or given up on RFP’s where you would have had a good shot if only you had been able to offer that additional bit of functionality? How many times have you pondered over investing money that really isn’t in your budget in order to win critical new business or keep an important client? I think the reality today for capital markets focused technology vendors is that you cannot do it all by yourself – but your business could perish trying.
There is no denying that continuous innovation on your core offering and application stack is necessary to meet dynamic client needs and is central to growing your business. But, you don’t have to go it alone. There are third-party providers that can offer you the right combination of expertise and technology, helping you win more and innovate faster. This has never been truer than it is today, especially in the world of derivatives finance.
Change is scary, but creates opportunity
Your clients that trade OTC derivatives are increasingly challenged by changing regulations, scrutiny and compliance requirements that are making it more difficult for them to remain competitive. A specific area they struggle with is obtaining the analytics needed to value and risk manage positions and portfolios. Today, it’s not just about pricing some bonds, options and swaps. Instead, it’s about making fundamental changes to the curves you use to price these derivatives (from LIBOR to OIS), accounting for counterparty related adjustments on pricing, calculating first order risk sensitivities on anything clients hold instantly, and being completely transparent about models and methods to meet compliance requirements—to name a few.
This is where partnering with established experts and proven technology providers like FINCAD can offer tremendous advantages by helping you:
Accelerate time to market: As a client’s business evolves, vendors are often expected to deliver enhanced derivative instrument coverage, accurate portfolio analytics or intraday risk numbers in time sensitive cycles. Relying on an established third party analytics provider that has the capability to provide the coverage and analytics needed with trusted algorithms and development tools for easy integration lets vendors respond swiftly. This approach significantly reduces product risk, costs and dependence on internal quantitative resources, if they exist in your organization. It also can give you the opportunity to release new client functionality ahead of schedule.
Tick the ‘pricing analytics’ check box on the RFP: For financial firms that have derivative positions, an enterprise vendor is expected to have it all when it comes to sophisticated derivative pricing/processing capabilities. Access to analytics capabilities that cover your clients’ or prospects’ entire book of business can give you the confidence you need to enter the fray amongst competing vendors.
Add greater business value: The best way to delight your customers is to help them delight their stakeholders –customers, investors, employees and regulators (you choose the order). For your clients that trade derivatives bringing ready to use, transparent, trusted and easy to integrate derivative pricing capabilities to the table can enhance your value proposition significantly. You become a trusted advisor with proficiency not only in your area of focus, but also by bringing expertise from your partners to the mix as part of your overall solution.
Stay current with your customer’s analytics needs: Your clients are looking to generate returns in an ever evolving financial market with ever evolving financial instruments. Your technology will only be relevant to them if it meets their current trading, hedging, compliance and accounting needs today and also helps them worry less about future needs. This is especially the case when they add new instruments, particularly derivatives to their portfolios. Working with a partner can help you keep pace with clients’ investment and hedging strategies as they evolve with the markets.
Leverage partner assets: The biggest value a partner can add is ‘trust’. Trust needs to be earned and working with an established and well recognized vendor to add capabilities to your solution that are typically outside of your core area of focus will only enhance your overall proposition with clients. In addition, when you partner with companies like FINCAD, through their Alliance Program, you will get help with:
- Planning go-to-market strategies as they relate to FINCAD technology
- Creating sales enablement tools for your field salesforce
- Engaging sales opportunities where you need FINCAD's quantitative expertise
- Developing client facing collateral including case studies
- Promoting the combined proposition through joint events and webinars
- Obtaining higher level access to FINCAD quantitative resources for support issues
- Supporting your professional services engagements that relate to FINCAD analytics
It’s worth noting that FINCAD’s multi-asset valuation and risk analytics are used by leading financial institutions globally. In fact, we count more than 3500 institutions in over 80 countries as clients and have one of the most successful alliance programs in the FinTech industry working with over 65 FinTech vendors globally in support of their business.
Learn more about FINCAD’s partner program here.
