Central to these enhancements are a straightforward interface and improved usability, enabling quants, portfolio managers, traders, and risk managers to quickly leverage F3’s capabilities to help generate superior investment returns in an extremely challenging climate.

Low yields and negative interest rates are making it difficult for portfolio managers and traders to achieve their desired level of returns, and as a result, are seeking to improve returns with new strategies, additional asset classes and derivatives. Unfortunately, at many firms, legacy systems are straining to adapt to these changes precisely when they are needed to handle the new asset classes, currencies, and instrument types.

To help firms put their new investment strategies into action—and do so in way that is easy for quants and non-quants alike, FINCAD F3 has been significantly enhanced with the addition of F3 WorkStation, a powerful portfolio analytics and risk application that enables better investment decisions and risk management. Leveraging F3’s leading valuation and risk analytics and its scalable architecture, F3 WorkStation is an intuitive web application allowing portfolio managers, traders and risk managers to quickly and accurately, price, value and manage their trades and portfolios. F3’s valuation and risk functionality benefits investment firms in the following important ways:

• Generate better returns: With unmatched speed, F3 generates more accurate pricing, valuation and risk calculations, enabling improved trading and hedging decisions. Better decisions lead to superior returns.
• Gain more flexibility and control: An advanced modeling framework allows users to quickly build models and curves that reflect their market view, and enables entry into new asset classes and instruments to support complex trading strategies.
• Monitor portfolio performance: Front and middle office users can monitor and manage their portfolios with intuitive dashboards and comprehensive reports, including: what-if/scenario analysis, cash flows, sensitivities, mark-to-market, P&L, P&L attribution, rate reset and trade audit.
• Improve operational efficiency: Portfolio managers, traders and risk managers are aligned with a consistent set of valuation and risk reports, which can be run anytime, on-demand, eliminating the need for costly front and middle-office reconciliation.

An active fund manager with over $18B AUM said, “F3 adds great value to our business, particularly with our interest rates and FX portfolios. We now have precise control over our valuations and hedging, and have streamlined our regulatory compliance. We really appreciate FINCAD’s commitment to continuously improving F3 and their responsive support.”

James Church, VP of Product Management and R&D at FINCAD weighed in on the recent F3 enhancements, “In this market environment where it is very difficult to generate alpha, F3 is an important, and cost-effective solution that can help investment managers realize their investment goals. The enhancements we have made to this already powerful solution give investment firms access to the highest level of valuation and risk analytics functionality that was once only available to tier-1 banks.”

Firms working with FINCAD not only benefit from cutting-edge technology, but also gain a trusted partner dedicated to their success. From implementation to on-going support, FINCAD’s client services team of experienced quantitative analysts and derivative specialists provide outstanding client support, develop custom solutions for clients, and often act as an extension of a clients’ own quantitative team.

Bob Park, FINCAD co-founder and CEO, commented on what sets F3 apart, “Up until now, investment firms’ two main options have been to either build their systems in-house from the ground-up, or buy a standard off-the-shelf product. Building in-house is unrealistic for all but the largest institutions, and most firms do not have the time, resources or expertise to invest in the development and ongoing maintenance of an in-house solution. The other option is an off-the-shelf system that has clear limits on functionality, and is difficult to customize.”

Bob continued, “F3 is a compelling alternative to the build versus buy dilemma, and provides the best of both worlds – the built-in functionality and ease of use of off-the-shelf software, and the flexibility to customize it to your exact needs. Plus, F3 customization can typically be accomplished in a matter of weeks, not years. This gives investment firms the freedom to develop strategies that can improve their returns, without the limits imposed by legacy technology.”