Milestone Group, the world fund processing solutions producer, has announced the appointment of Enrique Gonzalez to support Product Management and head the function for the APAC region. Enrique will be responsible for the regulation of expansion of Milestone’s product line to primary client segments, including repatriating globally developed solutions back into the Australian market and across the Asia Pacific region. The appointment reflects Milestone Group’s ongoing commitment to the APAC region with clients now utilising its flagship pControl platform in 14 countries globally.

Enrique brings more than 25 years of experience in the international asset-servicing industry having worked in Luxembourg, London, Dublin and Sydney. Most recently he worked in Paris for BNP Paribas where he was integral in developing and expanding the bank’s global custody offering. Prior to BNP Paribas he held senior positions at JP Morgan, Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, State Street and Westpac Financial Services. His experience spans operations, relationship and product management as well as audit and sales.

“When the opportunity to work with Milestone Group arose it was an easy decision,” according to Enrique. “The global company is growing rapidly: I had heard a number of success stories with Milestone Group’s pControl platform, not only for the quality of service it provides but also how the company engages with clients. Having sat on the other side of the fence for years, I understand the costs and challenges experienced by asset owners and fund managers. I knew there must be a way technology could simplify many of the processes associated with fund administration, and now I have a chance to drive that change.”

Mark Neary, Milestone Group’s Managing Director for APAC, commented: “We’re excited to bring Enrique on board. The funds industry is at an interesting point in its maturity where it continues to grow, but under constant margin pressure and increased regulatory scrutiny. Product complexity is now a key feature of the global landscape and we are fortunate that Enrique brings such a breadth and depth of experience across products and markets. The appointment reflects our commitment to bring international expertise and insights to our institutional clients through both our products and people.” Enrique will join Milestone Group’s APAC management committee, reporting to Mark Neary.

Diasoft, a world provider of innovative banking solutions, was cited in the Global Banking Platform Deals Survey 2013 report; Customer-Facing Solutions are Driving Banking Platform Deals, issued in June 2014 by the independent research company, Forrester Research, Inc.

All Diasoft solutions are built in full compliance with principles of componentization and SOA. Leveraging the most advanced technologies and the best global banking practices, such products offer to their Customers a modern and highly efficient process-driven approach to automation of financial services and provide them with a reliable platform for the successful business development. Each functional component of the system can be supplied either separately or as an integral part of a fully functional front-to-back banking system, providing vast opportunities for various IT strategies and gradual business growth.

“We are proud to be included in the Forrester report”, said Mikhail Kryuchkov, Director, Global Markets, Diasoft. “We feel this inclusion indicates that our clients recognize the value of Diasoft component-based SOA-compliant financial solution, customer-centric approach, and the ability to flexibly support ever-increasing global regulations.  As we plan to keep in line with the most cutting-edge technologies and innovations, we expect our position as a world`s leading software solutions provider will continue to rise.”

Fund administrator Curo Fund Services (“Curo”) has further enhanced the transparency and efficiency in the pricing of investment layers within its multi-managed portfolios for its client, Old Mutual Multi-Managers. This follows Curo’s deployment of Milestone Group’s pControl platform, which is part of an investment programme to deliver market-leading administration services to multi-manager, unit trust and life company clients.

According to Paul Roberts, Managing Director EMEA of Milestone Group: “Competitive market conditions across South Africa have driven an increased focus on integrity and transparency, which has triggered firms and their service providers to look for automated solutions.”
 
“In a first for the South African market, pControl removes manual processes, which enables Curo to support the likes of Old Mutual Multi-Managers in offering complex investment structures while at the same time providing greater visibility across the business,” says Hank Pienaar, Managing Director of Curo. “This deployment is a significant step in dealing with one of the key challenges typically faced by multi-managers - ensuring the integrity and transparency of the various investment layers or ‘building blocks’ within a product portfolio.”
 
The implementation of pControl has enabled Curo to deliver more efficient and flexible administration service across a number of complex processes such as net-asset-value (NAV) unit pricing, cash allocation and rebalancing, unitised order management and income distribution. pControl's integrated reconciliation, accounting and data manager capabilities also allow Curo to provide increased end-to-end process transparency to Old Mutual Multi-Managers.
 
Russel Julie, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Old Mutual Multi-Managers added: “This allows us to further enhance our service to clients. In a traditional multi-manager portfolio administration system, inconsistencies are only detected after you’ve run through an entire day’s pricing. This may necessitate a complete rework, which could result in significant delays. pControl differentiates itself by following a sequenced validation approach for processing transactions and pricing of multi-managed portfolios. This means interventions are possible at each validation point, so we’re able to resolve inconsistencies earlier. It further speeds up the overall process in producing an output with the required level of integrity at first pass. ”
 
Since Old Mutual Multi-Manager’s clients are primarily large retirement funds who have direct access to its product portfolios, they will benefit directly from Curo’s professional asset administration services.
 
“pControl has provided Curo’s multi-manager clients with numerous benefits since going live in 2013. We look forward to supporting Curo in their future growth,” concludes Roberts.

Diasoft, a global provider of innovative core banking solutions, is included in TOP 50 CNews ranking of the largest and the most successful IT companies in Russia.

According to the research performed by CNews Analytics, the consolidated revenue of the 100 largest Russian IT companies made 918 billion rubles in 2013.

Analyzing the Russian market of IT-technologies, experts say that many players this year demonstrated a positive dynamics, including Diasoft that by results of 2013 year jumped up 2 spots in CNews ranking. Analyzing the results of 2013, the experts note that the year was rich with events and that the Russian IT market will continue its dynamical growth and structural transformation, reaching a new level of maturity.

“Diasoft stable position in the ranking once again proves the right choice of the company`s business development strategy, and tangible advantages that Diasoft delivers to its Customers”, - said Dmitry Zubarev, Managing Director, Diasoft. “By developing innovative solutions we don`t only strengthen our positions in the market, we also bring success to our Customers”.

This year Diasoft was also included into TOP-50 “RIA Ranking” of the leading IT-companies. Speaking about the main trends of the year 2013, the analysts specially focused on the role of emerging markets, which will become the trendsetters in the technological domain. Along with Russia, the key markets for the IT development will be Brazil, India, China, Turkey, South Africa, and Asia Pacific — the regions close to the size of the Russian market.

“Besides strengthening its position in the Russian market, Diasoft strategy until 2015 year aims at the company expansion into the global market and competition with global vendors”, said Roman Styatyugin, Business Development Director, Diasoft. “We have evident advantages for this and continue creating new opportunities. We established a representative office in Shanghai to support our collaboration with prospect customers in China and Asia Pacific. In the mature markets we offer our Legacy Renovation technology for the transformation of aging IT systems. Currently we participate in several specialized tenders. In rapidly developing African and Asian countries we offer both separate FLEXTERA components and complex FLEXTERA banking solutions”.

The readers of Profit and Loss magazine have voted DealHub (Option Computers Ltd) number one in two categories in this year’s Readers Choice awards.  DealHub scooped ‘Best Post Trade Provider’ for the 5^th year in a row, while also winning the ‘Digital Markets Innovator Award’ for their trading connectivity service, FX Distribution Hub.

The result was announced last week at the Profit & Loss Digital Markets Award dinner in New York, following months of voting by financial market participants and readers of the publication.

“Over the last year, we’ve continued to put customers at the heart of everything we do at DealHub and we couldn’t be more pleased to win these two awards”commented Peter Kriskinans, DealHub CEO “Winning Best Post Trade Provider for the fifth year in a row is a validation of our record of speed and reliability, as well as our ability to tackle the most complex workflow challenges faced by our customers.I’d like to thank the team at DealHub for all their hard work and dedication over the last year – and our customers around the world for their votes of support.”

Chris Leaver, DealHub COO,added “We’re also delighted that the market has recognised FX Distribution Hub with the Digital Markets Innovator award - we're excited about the role we're playing in making eFX markets more efficient, helping our customers reach new trading partnersby broadening their ECN connectivity and building direct liquidity relationships between member banks”

DealHub’s post trade solutions are live at the majority of the world’s largest FX banks and a significant number of regional and specialist banks, brokers and buy side institutions.  These firms rely on Dealhub to safely deliver high throughput Straight ThroughProcessing (STP) messages, from the full range of trading channels, into risk and back office systems.  Additional workflow modules from DealHub perform complex transformation, reconciliation, processing and regulatory reporting tasks, as well as providing live business intelligence on all trade flow.

FX Distribution Hub is a fully managed trading connectivity platform for market making and liquidity sourcing via direct connectivity to trading venues and the Hub’s growing membership of global and regional banks.  Additional workflow and pricing logic can be managed by the Hub, including price margining and low latency credit checking.  A powerful business intelligence capability provides real-time and historical feedback on pricing and infrastructure performance.  The managed service is hosted in Equinix LD4 and NY4, co-located with many of the industry’s leading participants and trading venues.

Diasoft, a leading provider of cutting-edge financial software solutions, has achieved Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status.

Microsoft is the world’s leader in information technologies, developing a wide range of devices, software and IT- services. This is one of the largest corporations in the world, operating in more than 170 countries. Microsoft`s workforce estimates more than 90 thousand people. According to the annual research of Millward Brown agency, by results of 2012 Microsoft is included in TOP 5 of the most expensive brands in the world (78 billion dollars).

Today cooperation between leading organizations has become the key tendency of financial sector globally, as it allows strengthening positions of both partners though strong mutual support and acquisition of invaluable experience.

Microsoft Gold partnership opens new prospects and benefits to Diasoft. With Microsoft Gold Certified status Diasoft obtained new opportunities for development of its own solutions for the automation of financial institutions, and, as a result, all Diasoft customers will benefits from the cutting-edge Microsoft technologies.

Diasoft has the right for production of distributives and sale of licensed Microsoft software products. Both flagship solutions by Diasoft – Diasoft FA# and FLEXTERA – utilize Microsoft infrastructure solutions, including MS SQL Server 2012. Today up to 70% of Diasoft customers select databases basing on Microsoft technologies.

“We are always happy for success of our partners, - says Nikolay Pryanichnikov, President and CEO, Microsoft Russia. - Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status of Diasoft confirms the availability of specialists with deep expertise in development, deployment and maintenance of financial solutions for data processing platforms on the basis of Microsoft technologies. This is the highest grade that Microsoft grants to its partners for best in class solutions.”

Asset managers are feeling unprepared for future challenges despite already making strides to improve fund oversight, according to a survey of North American institutional asset managers. The research, carried out by Milestone Group, surveyed leading organizations and showed that 40 percent of respondents felt their current operation was unprepared to meet anticipated regulatory changes and desired an increase in automation. However, approximately 61 percent would not wait for new regulations to arrive before strengthening oversight, as asset managers and trustees make protecting their reputation and the interests of investors their top priority.

Commenting on the findings, Marlena Fitts, Product Management & Marketing Leader at Milestone Group said: “While the industry recognizes the importance of regulation, the reputation they’ve worked to build is the major factor for firms looking to strengthen their fund oversight functions. An education process is taking place across the market, and it is positive to see that most already understand the need for performing some level of operational oversight of their service provider outputs beyond periodic service level meetings.”

Fitts went on to say: “Rather than performing manually intensive tasks like collecting and entering data into spreadsheets to perform checks, organizations need to have a platform in place that centralizes and automates the process of validating key data points from their suppliers, allowing asset managers to focus on analyzing and managing exceptions, often within tight time windows. For all firms that outsource key functions such as NAV calculation, oversight automation is essential to reducing operational risk.”

The survey respondents, which mostly involved traditional institutional asset managers, also included wealth managers, pension advisors, and a third-party administrators’ middle office operation that provides oversight for investment management clients. The size of the respondents ranged from $4.5 billion AUM to $2 trillion.

Diasoft, a global provider of cutting-edge financial software solutions, has achieved Fujitsu SELECT Partner status.

Fujitsu is a leading provider of infrastructure solutions across Europe, Middle East, Africa and India regions, as well as in Russia and CIS countries. The company offers a wide range of IT-products, solutions and services – starting from the user licenses up to datacenters, IT-infrastructure management services and IaaS (infrastructure as a service).

Diasoft has successfully strengthened its competence in implementation of Fujitsu solutions, and increased a number of Fujitsu certified specialists, developing software solutions for the automation of financial business. As a certified Fujitsu SELECT Partner Diasoft has the right to distribute and install Fujitsu solutions. With SELECT Partner status Diasoft received a number of benefits, including additional technical resources, support from Fujitsu in implementation of IT-projects, as well as an increase in projects` productivity.

SELECT Partner Program has a three-tier structure. First level of partnership (Partner status) provides a wide range of opportunities including online trainings for employees and access to directory of Fujitsu solutions. With the second level of partnership – SELECT Partner a company acquires some additional benefits: personal SELECT Partner manager and extended technical resources. To achieve this level Diasoft has successfully passed the certification on Fujitsu products and solutions of SERVER & STORAGE category.

The third level of Fujitsu partner program - SELECT Expert status opens the opportunity to obtain expertise in the field of Fujitsu Server Infrastructures (Server Certification allowing to install and configure Fujitsu servers and blade-servers), as well as in the field of Fujitsu Infrastructure Solutions (Fujitsu virtualization and automation technologies certificate).

MasterCard (NYSE: MA) today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Opus Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.,  (“Opus”) to acquire its subsidiary, ElectraCard Services Private Limited, (“ECS”), a leading global provider of software solutions and processing services for electronic payment and card systems. MasterCard previously had a minority investment in ECS. This transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter of 2014.

ECS, headquartered in Pune, India is a leading provider of software products and processing services for electronic payments. Its customer base includes financial institutions, retailers and telcos in over 25 countries globally. ECS’ suite of products enables customers to issue and manage all types of payment cards and electronically process card transactions across multiple channels such as ATM, POS, internet and mobile.

MasterCard’s acquisition of ECS extends its product offerings and adds to the company’s turnkey issuing processing, acquiring processing and switching solutions.

Commenting on the acquisition, Vicky Bindra, president, Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa, MasterCard, said: “The acquisition of ECS strengthens our capabilities and enables us to offer a true end-to-end solution for our customers. ECS’s expertise complements MasterCard’s products and services, making us an even stronger player in the field of processing and switching. We welcome ECS and its talented team into the MasterCard family, and we look forward to working alongside them.”

Ramesh Mengawade, Chairman of Opus said: “We have had a strong relationship with MasterCard for many years now and are excited that the ECS team will be part of MasterCard enabling it to deliver turnkey processing solutions to its customers. Opus will continue its focus on growing its IT services business for the credit and payments market in the North America region.”
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.