MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI), a leading provider of investment decision support tools and services, today announced the development of Investment Solutions as a Service for the global investment industry in collaboration with Microsoft Corp. The new service will allow institutional investors to use next generation technologies, advanced analytics and big data to help anticipate and address key strategic and investment challenges.

Built to align long-term technology and data trends with the immediate needs of investors, the service will combine Microsoft’s Cloud and AI technologies with MSCI’s extensive data sets, analytical models and deep expertise of the global investment industry to power next-generation investment decision making.

Investment Solutions as a Service will transform the investment process and experience, beginning with the following services launching in 2021:

• ESG Solutions as a Service
• Index Solutions as a Service
• Data Management Solutions as a Service
• Investment Analytics Solutions as a Service

The launch of these services reflects the increasing demand for technologies that offer “solutions as a service”, harness big data and provide customized experiences. The solutions are a part of the strategic alliance created between MSCI and Microsoft in 2020 to accelerate innovation in the global investment industry.

“The partnership with Microsoft underscores MSCI’s continued commitment to develop new and innovative investing solutions,” said Henry Fernandez, Chairman and CEO, MSCI. “We have combined Microsoft’s best of breed technology with our robust data and analytical capabilities and rigorous understanding of client challenges to create a suite of services to empower investors. From responding to the historic and unrivalled challenge of climate change, to harnessing the power of big data and innovative analytics, Investment Solutions as a Service is a milestone in powering the next generation of investment decision making.”

“MSCI and Microsoft share a commitment to accelerating innovation in the financial services industry,” said Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President, Cloud + AI, Microsoft. “MSCI’s investment solutions, combined with the data and analytics capabilities of Microsoft Azure, will enable investment managers to harness intelligent insights needed to confidently navigate today’s global markets.”

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Solutions as a Service

With ESG firmly established as a high-priority issue for global investors and corporations, ESG Solutions as a Service will help them better understand, analyze and interpret the investment and business risks and opportunities that climate change brings. Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure and PowerBI platforms, investors will be able to evaluate industries and companies with the world’s leading ESG analytics, and corporations will be able to understand their risk assessment when compared to their peers. The service will provide detailed insights on companies’ adaptive capacity to climate change, carbon footprint measurements, as well as exposure to physical risk, including climate-related events such as hurricanes and flooding.

Index Solutions as a Service

Index Solutions as a Service will provide investors with the opportunity to create and customize indexes, marking the first time clients will have MSCI’s index construction capabilities at their fingertips. The service is aimed at delivering an insightful and efficient experience that shortens the time from market hypothesis to new customized indexes. Built on Microsoft Azure, Index Solutions as a Service leverages the insights created through MSCI’s 50+ years of index experience. It will provide clients with a seamless, self-service experience to create, back test and analyze customized indexes; compare those indexes against established benchmarks; refine their creations through an iterative process and order them from MSCI.

Data Management Solutions as a Service & Investment Analytics Solutions as a Service

With Data Management Solutions as a Service and Investment Analytics Solutions as a Service, investors can directly discover and access in a new and dynamic manner a rich and extensive store of data sets and robust analytical capabilities from MSCI’s powerful investment solutions today. MSCI will be releasing a new Developer Portal offering APIs that seamlessly integrate with clients’ existing ecosystems. Through the Developer Portal, developers and researchers can find, select and analyze historical markets data on a range of asset classes and develop their own investment solutions that meet their specific risk and portfolio construction needs.

“The launch of MSCI’s Investment Solutions as a Service is the latest example of our continuous innovation and drive to develop cutting-edge technologies,” said Jigar Thakkar, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Engineering, MSCI. “We recognize that our clients are operating in an increasingly complex environment where the need for intelligent insights for portfolio management and risk analysis has never been more important. Our new services will provide a friction-free experience with rapid self-customization and exploration of our data sets, putting power in the hands of investors like never before.”