, and
LPL
. While 55ip offers automated trade-generation and execution with the custodian, they can also deliver trade files that advisors can execute through whatever platform they use.
Paul explained that as part of their business strategy, they are not trying to be an end-to-end advisor workflow platform, with everything from CRM to portfolio reporting. They are positioning themselves as the deep investment strategy engine that can plug into any of those platforms. In the near future, Paul said, they are planning to broaden their integrations with advisor-facing software and financial-planning platforms, and deeper integrations with custodians. As an example, 55ip was recently announced as a partner on the TD Ameritrade Institutional Veo platform.
Optimal product management
Swati described 55ip as quantitative-focused, meaning that apart from developing software products they do significant quantitative research. Within the product department, this is all integrated into one team. By employing Agile methodology, they create requirements for their projects while at the same time constantly monitoring and gathering feedback from clients, internal partners, and integration partners, to make changes if necessary.
“We talk to our advisors, our clients, continuously. We do a fair bit of competitive analysis to make sure we’re staying on top of the trends we’re seeing. Whatever we are hearing from the market, we make sure we are keeping on track with that. That’s the process of the gathering requirements. It’s a combination of market analysis, competitive analysis, and client requirements.” – Swati
Paul added that current trends in FinTech are heavy on the tech side, but 55ip’s expertise is inherently more ”Fin.” The combination of a financial research team, led by Chief Investment Scientist Leonid Kogan, Chair of the Finance Department at the MIT Sloan School of Management, allows them to take the research and give advisors and their clients access to this powerful combination of intelligence, customization and automation on the 55ip platform.
Software development and distributed teams
55ip manages several well-integrated Agile teams divided into two functions, a development team, and a QA testing team. They also have quantitative research and product management teams. The platform uses
HTML5