Olmstead Associates is a Boston-based consulting firm focusing on the securities industry. We bridge the gap between business and technology by providing management consulting, project management, subject-matter experts and industry training to many of the top buy-side firms. We have worked extensively supporting pre-trade, trade and post-trade operations and systems initiatives. A representative list of our current and previous engagements follows.
Played a key role during a large investment manager's recent implementation of Merrin Financial's equity trading system. In addition to implementing the core trading system, Olmstead Associates implemented interfaces to their inventory system and custodian banks to provide a paper-less trading environment and helped implement the CompAlert system for use by the trading desks to track absolute trade violations.
Wrote preliminary documentation for the trade order management module of Decalog's IDEE fixed income and equity trading system. Developed a single document for user, reference, training and marketing use based on real-world trading business scenarios and workflows.
Provided industry expertise during the recent development of a large mutual fund company equity trading system. We contributed functional and user interface definitions based on our previous trading systems and trading room knowledge and experience.
Helped a large investment manager determine whether they should market their internally developed investment management and trading system, FedPortS. Evaluated the product against 'best practice' functional requirements, recommended and prioritized enhancements, prepared a market and competitor analysis and helped strategize a product roll-out. Key functional areas addressed were investment management, trade order management, analytics, compliance, risk management and a security master repository for fixed income, money market, municipal, equity and derivative securities.
Assisted a large bank with data mapping and other implementation tasks for the IDS Investment Management System and its interfaces to their AMtrust securities accounting system.
Analyzed available vendor investment management and trading systems and provided a derivative product ranking given functional, technical, and organizational criteria.
Conducted a market survey of mutual fund investment managers and traders to determine their business and systems requirements and use. Designed a questionnaire, developed a calling list, coordinated calls through a tele-marketing firm and analyzed the results.
Designed and wrote reports to support Merrin's equity trading system using Microsoft Access.
Helping Advanced Information Systems implement their trading and portfolio management system, FedPorts, at a large mutual funds company. We are working with the vendor and client senior management to design an implementation strategy and preparing business specifications and testing required product enhancements.
Provided testing and quality assurance support to a large trust bank for their performance measurement and analytics systems. Developed test cases and data to ensure that the systems perform according to specifications, execute the tests, review the results and document test findings.
Helped a large bank design and implement an interface between their investment management group's performance measurement system and trust accounting system. The project included project planning, workflow analysis and datamapping.
Helped a large investment manager review available vendor performance measurement systems. Reviewed business and technical capabilities and recommended a short-list for detailed analysis.
Helped implement SunGard's Superf4 global performance measurement system at a major trust bank.
Provided testing and QA support for Charles River Development's original compliance and security master repository systems at a large mutual fund company. Developed test cases and data to ensure that the systems performed according to specifications, executed test cases, reviewed the results and documented test findings.
Provided on-going testing and quality assurance support to a large trust bank for their compliance system. Developed test cases and data to ensure that the systems perform according to specifications, execute the tests, review the results and document test findings.
Helped the investment group of a large trust bank design an investment monitoring system which includes checking for pre-trade regulatory and management compliance for institutional trust accounts.
Conducted a trust accounting system vendor package search for a large trust bank. Defined and prioritized business and technical requirements, reviewed vendor packages, determined a short-list and helped conduct detailed reviews.
Provided consulting support to the Institutional Trust integration team at a large trust and global custody bank that had recently merged with another bank. The integration team was responsible for converting the parent bank's clients to the acquired company's global custody and accounting systems. Projects included acting as facilitator between both banks' senior staff to develop a business and systems integration strategy for one of their largest investment manager clients, reviewing company-wide DTC related development projects and recommending a cost-effective strategy to prioritize and integrate efforts while meeting the T+3 deadline, assessing the bank's overall ability to meet T+3 and making recommendations, providing business specifications for corporate actions enhancements and testing system performance and response time.
Helped a major trust vendor, M&I Data, strategize a global securities processing release for their domestic trust accounting system. Developed a functional "best practice" gap analysis and prioritized recommended enhancements. The study included time and cost estimates for future development.
Providing the Private Asset Management group of a large trust and custody bank with assistance on several key projects. These include designing custody and accounting systems enhancements for an existing client and designing custody and other interfaces for a major new client. These projects include work-flow analysis, business specifications, conversion planning, testing, documentation, and training.
Helped design and implement interfaces between the AMtrust accounting system and Premier's Global Plus custody system at an institutional trust organization.
Helping Fidelity's Advisor Technology Services Group document and test their latest AMtrust 9.0 release which includes Year 2000 and global securities processing. Key areas of focus include security master file, SMAC, compliance and dollar plan accounting.
Helped a large investment management company extract data and develop reports from their custodian's inhouse systems.
For more information you can e-mail us at:
olmstead@olmst.com
