We’re always thinking of new ways to grow at FTF and therefore we are in the midst of planning a new conference that will focus on retail banking and mobile technologies for May 22nd in NYC (agenda to be posted soon on www.ftfnews.com). We are collaborating with Aite Group on this event, which we are
Financial Technology
To RFP or not to RFP, that is the Question – Do a Proof of Concept Instead
Guest Contributor: Berl Kaufman, Principal, Afferent Consulting Services In some cases you are mandated to do RFPs for your product selections. Don’t do RFPs as a reflex action. The RFP is mostly a waste of time. Vendors always lie on RFPs to get high scores and qualify for your short list. The RFP is only
Cloud
How to Launch a Hedge Fund … Did You Miss Out?
I am pleased to report that we received a ton of great feedback from our most recent How to Launch a Hedge Fund seminar in New York last week! Subjects discussed ranged from the up-front decisions and vendors needed to start a fund to the major legal issues a start-up would face. Sessions also got
Financial Technologies Forum (FTF)
Financial Technology Acquisitions: A(nother) Year-in-Review
Well, it’s hard to imagine, but another year has nearly passed, which means it’s time, once again, for my end-of-year fintech acquisition write-up. Believe it or not, I was wrong last year when I predicted that 2011 would result in MORE acquisitions. Last year, I compiled a list of 43 and this year, I have
Cloud
RIAs: Moving on up – to the Cloud Part I
Guest Contributor: Andrew Peddar, North American CEO, StatPro Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) have long relied on one of two choices for portfolio analytics and reporting: enterprise wide technologies and services or niche technologies. While enterprise technologies are packaged with lots of functionality, the functionality often doesn’t meet the granular needs of the advisor and lack
Back-Office
The Role of Big Data Analytics – Living in a 2.0 World
Guest Contributer: Andrew Ettinger, Director, Sales, Greenplum Let’s face it, we live in a different world today. I am sitting here on my Mac computer, with my iPhone out, my iPad is in my briefcase, I am answering email on both my phone and computer, I am surfing the web from paying a credit card
Compliance
Catching Up to Fraud
I have to admit, I’ve never really thought about what steps go into catching the masterminds behind financial crime. I’ve heard all about firms upping their compliance and updating their strategies to catch suspicious activity internally, but I have never taken into account the role that the SEC plays in tracking the tips and complaints
Compliance
Mobile Technology – Helpful or Hurtful?
Mobile technology is currently a hot topic for the financial services industry. Many industry publications, including our own FTF News, have written special reports (I will link Eugene’s article here) exploring the growing mobile technology space and the new prospects it has created. Companies have been using this new resource to open up the communication
Financial Technology
The Perfect Outsourcing Climate – Can Vendors Deliver?
The financial services industry is entering a period of rapid change. Where the industry stood five years ago is extremely different than where it stands today. With any type of change ultimately come challenges, and the financial services industry is certainly not lacking in that area. According to a recent Tower Group whitepaper commissioned by
Compliance
FTF Heads to Boston – Securities Ops Seminar Wrap-Up
In case you weren’t following our live updates on twitter last week (#FTFSecOps), I thought I would bring you up to speed on the issues discussed at our Securities Operations Seminar in Boston last week. The day got kicked off with a timely discussion on the impact of Dodd-Frank and other regulatory initiatives for securities