Confluence

Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) are voluntary, ethical standards based on the fundamental principles of full disclosure and fair representation of investment performance. As investor expectations increase and product innovation develops, the standards are evolving to remain relevant and maintain their core purpose: ensuring...

Transaction vs holdings-based performance calculations It’s important for your firm to know the pros and cons of each method. Whilst both methods provide inputs to analysis providing a breakdown of the returns, enabling the effectiveness of various investment strategies to be evaluated and explained, it is important to understand that...

The importance of performance attribution in fixed income investing cannot be overstated. Portfolio managers use it in both support and defense of their investment strategies. It is integral for sales and marketing teams when it comes to asset gathering and client retention. Clients also rely heavily on it to determine how effectively their...

Spend even a short amount of time in finance, and you’ll realize stock and bond investment managers are generally cut from different cloths. The former are often chatty, right-brain types, and the latter more analytical and left-brained. Both asset classes can accomplish valuable things inside a portfolio, but that’s pretty much...

Heavy regulation in an industry is usually synonymous with a large body of standards expected of its participants. Aviation, for instance, is loaded with rules and regulations on everything from cabin lighting to the number of flight hours permitted between engine overhauls. Partly as a response, virtually every facet of the industry –...

"Hands up if you’re a subscriber to Netflix?" I asked at a conference in New York recently, and very nearly every single hand in the room went up. I then asked who was a Netflix stock holder, and a few hands were raised, mine included. So, for full disclosure, I am a stock holder of Netflix. This article isn’t intended to sell...

More often than not when I browse a trade journal or the news these days, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is front and centre. AI, robots, and other technologies reminiscent of science fiction are beginning to take shape in all aspects of our lives. From the automotive industry to Amazon, and now even to the financial services industry, corporations...

Revenue growth projections for offshoring software services and business-process outsourcing (BPO) activities are deteriorating – across the globe. 2017 sales projections for the big players have been reduced multiple times. Industry analysts are downgrading their projections as offshoring firms are continuously battered with increasing...

Cloud computing is changing the way we all consume and interact with technology. Whether this is at home with Netflix, or with devices such as Amazon Alexa, or at work, with cloud-based services like Office365, Salesforce or other specialist enterprise applications. In business, cloud computing is an enabler; it creates strategic change in the way...

On a recent flight home after a client meeting, I found myself thinking about what is really motivating global financial services companies in their decision-making around technology and regulatory compliance. In the highly competitive third-party administrator space, I think one of the primary motivators is the fear of revenue loss (really,...