A Top 100 multi-strategy hedge fund with over $10 billion in AUMs, recently implemented CAARS Derivatives Collateral Management System, a web-based third-party solution targeted at addressing the challenges associated with daily collateral and margin management for OTC derivatives. CAARS was designed by IntegriDATA, a leading New York City-based consulting group. The system features a real-time, automated, exception based end-to-end workflow – from broker data capture to action execution.
“With CAARS we realized a significant uptick in operating efficiency, process timing and risk control” said the cpp of the hedge fund. Prior to implementing CAARS, the company’s collateral management process was highly manual and people dependent, including the processing of margin calls and returns of excess. “CAARS is a turn-key solution that is affordable, quick to implement, and delivers immediate time and headcount savings. Most importantly it provided us with the capability to independently compute and compare margin requirements against the broker’s records” stated their Director of Operations.
Over the past few years, there has been a heightened interest in collateral management due to internal risk management sensitivities and impending external regulatory pressures. It has been widely recognized that collateral and margin management is fraught with issues and challenges. “With over 25 years of experience managing operations functions and a passion for process effectiveness, I felt our company had to deliver a comprehensive solution that would also provide an immediate ROI” comments IntegriDATA’s ceo, Mitchel J. Schulman. “We designed CAARS to breakthrough all the obstacles associated with the process – from non-standard and ever changing broker file formats, to lack of common financial instrument IDs. We are very pleased to offer CAARS to the investment management community and we commit to provide outstanding 24/7 support to our clients” further states Mr. Schulman.
