Broker Research Platform for Financial Analytics Services

Events management and tracking are performed within the app designed for these purposes. The events managed are Researches that require specific interactions between the sell-side and buy-side: conferences with live streaming, meetings, calls, or presentations. They are mostly related to Interactions; however, some Services can also be included.

There are two modes within the solution: for buy-side organization, which “consumes” Interactions and Services, and for sell-side, which provides them. The application allows the customer to organize events, prioritize them, schedule, manage the attendees, as well as send automated emails.

Other Events functionality includes the activity dashboard, budgeting, invoices, payments, SSO, etc. Integration with the Vote Platform and Service Provider Portal enables the smooth flow of the held Interactions and Services to the voters’ ballots for further brokers’ review. In the future, strategic partnerships will extend the system into a more prominent planner.

Interactions & Services workflow is aimed at Broker review and evaluation in the Vote Platform. Based on the evaluation results, the budget allocation is defined with the help of the Commission Manager.

Interactions appear in the Vote Platform when buy-side users create them directly (UI and CSV upload) or via integration with the Events Tracker or the SPP. In the voting app, interactions are rated as part of a voting period, and the exact broker who organized the interaction also gets points from the voters in financial institutions. In the case of SPP, the workflow includes defining Vote Platform parameters to allow entering the platform. Not corresponding interactions are rejected and throw an error to sell-side users when trying to publish them on the sell-side from SPP.

The Services flow is required to highlight the difference between a one-time type of research service (Interaction) and a continuous service provided long-term. The difference in Services flow is that Services can be additionally set up on the buy-side Organization level as a template to reuse in multiple vote periods. This feature’s application depends on the users’ needs and their exact cooperation model with service providers.

The Commission Manager (for Asset Managers & Hedge Funds) is synchronized with voting data and allows the system to track research budgets. The goal of this module is the virtual aggregation of commission credits, efficient management of Commission Sharing Agreements (CSAs), and eligible research payments across CSA brokers.

Retrieval of research evaluation results to allocate budget is supported through integration with the voting platform. It allows users to keep a historical record of interactions with research providers. Due to this module, sell-side firms can also automate the management of their clients’ CSA software to enhance their cost-effectiveness and view direct CSA activity (balances, payments, trade reconciliations, etc.).

The Reconciliation form compares "cash book" and "bank statement" transactions recorded in the system and on the bank side. Matching transactions are recorded in the form. Adjusted bank statement balance allows users to add missing into the rec form from the cash book. In turn, adjusted cash book balance is for adding missing into rec form from bank statements. After comparing the adjusted totals, the system defines errors (unreconciled amount) and adds sums to correct mistakes. Rec journal entries are automated but can be performed manually by selecting bank transactions.

The Admin Panel is designed to be straightforward and standard. It allows the customer to manage its clients from the buy-side organizations (Asset Managers, Hedge Funds, etc.) as well as users and service providers.

Organizations’ functionality includes their creation and setting them active and inactive. The managed Organizations are created in all the modules: Voter app, Event Tracker, Commission Manager, and Service Provider Portal.

User management is available for all users created on the Organization level. In addition, some Organizations may pay for special support services, so there’s a functionality of “login on behalf of a user.” Super Admin and Admins can CRUD users-employees who should provide their formal feedback for brokers' research services.

The Service Provider Portal is the part of the system where buy-side firms onboard their service providers (brokers, the sell-side firms). That’s how the ecosystem allows effective information exchange between research consumers and providers.