Investment research process becoming automated.

With greater demands for transparency and disclosure as well as new regulatory pressures, the investment management industry is increasingly requiring enhanced automation, integration, discipline and organization in the investment research process.

“Many firms are encumbered by inefficiencies that hinder their ability to collect, share access and prioritize information,” Susan Lundquist, vice president of product marketing at Advent Software, told Markets Media.

In 2011, Advent launched Tamale RMS 6.0 to offer new tools to help investment firms automate the process of capturing, distributing and searching investment research data.

“Tamale helps firms centralize and organize research data, and brings a great deal of organization and process to the research area,” said Lundquist.

FinReg and other regulations are requiring buy side firms to “look at data holistically,” said Martin Sreba, principal solutions consultant at Advent Software.

With the SEC finalization of Form PF, hedge funds are now required to file a 44-page form, intended to help the SEC monitor and track systematic risk in the financial industry.

“Completing Form PF will require most funds to produce extensive detail, ranging from front to back office operations and infrastructure as well as the consolidation of information from disparate systems within a fund,” said Sreba.

The extent of information required depends on both the size and type of fund – generally, the larger the fund, the greater the burden in terms of data requirements and reporting frequency.

Often, the data that hedge funds need is maintained by their fund administrator. Advent has created a network, SmartXchange, to act as a conduit between hedge funds, fund administrators and prime brokers for exchanging critical and sensitive data.

Fund administrators can use SmartXchange to automate the collection of their clients’ trade files. Prime brokers can use it to automate the delivery of reconciliation files directory into a hedge fund’s accounting system.

“It’s more efficient than maintaining multiple connection points for different counterparties, and far more secure than conventional file transfer protocols,” said Sreba.

In combination with Advent Syncova Essentials, a hosted margin and financing reporting solution, SmartXchange enables hedge funds to download margin calculation reports.

“It enables hedge funds to have a clear and concise view of all margins and exposures to multiple counterparties,” said Sreba.