Investment Data Management

The breadth of data asset managers need to incorporate into investment workflows is ever-increasing. At the same time, ensuring data quality hasn’t been widely solved by the financial services industry.

With Limina, we haven’t retrofitted Investment Data Management (IDM) on the side. Instead, it’s a core component of the Investment Management Platform, natively embedded into the various workflows. The integrated investment data capabilities bring a new level of data oversight and data governance where data is accessible and continuously quality-assured in an exception-based manner.

Complete Portfolio Data with Extensible Data Models

Limina IMS is a transaction-based system, meaning there is no dependence on loading positions from an accounting source in the morning. The system tracks all non-trading related records and events (including fee accruals, cash transfers, and position lifecycle events), which ensures the system can represent your entire portfolios.

In addition to the portfolio data, the data models in Limina IMS are extensible to allow for custom classification data on securities, legal entities, etc. You can extend the data sets with, e.g. ESG data, risk classifications, market cap definitions and more. You can use these structured data points in your unique investment workflows, such as in compliance checks or as rebalancing parameters.

Accurate Investment Data

Custom validation rules and automated data quality control checks identify and flag issues early. We call that an exception-based workflow, where the system finds and notifies you about potential problems. Exception-based workflows ensure that your asset management operations team can work more efficiently and resolve any issues much earlier in the workflows. The system handles flagging of potential issues so that you can enjoy fewer manual checks. Essentially, exception-based workflows enable your team to focus on analysing and resolving issues.

Timely Portfolio Data

In time-critical situations, as in investment workflows, it doesn’t matter if the data is perfect - if it is not available when you need it. Needless to say, it’s difficult for Portfolio Managers to make informed investment decisions without data about their current portfolios. This holds true regardless of investment strategy.

Limina IMS is natively a real-time system with no silos between modules, which means that data is readily available in real-time across the whole system, with no dependencies on batch processes. The real-time data extends well beyond market data, including cash and other events.

Decrease Operational Risk with Automated Data Governance Solutions

Automation is generally challenging in investment management firms. With built-in data governance solutions, Limina IMS can help remove bottlenecks in investment processes and spot issues early on before they cause problems. This automation frees up valuable time for your team and enables you to manage risks.

All checks have full audit, enabling investment management data analytics to enhance processes and spot systematic issues.

Optional Data Validation Steps: 4-eye Approvals

Investment data governance is built into workflows, allowing for optional additional control steps (e.g., four-eye approval) when creating orders and approving transaction details ahead of affirmation/matching.

Limina takes 4-eye approvals one step further and allows for (configurable) approval processes on other data types as well. One example is in the pre and post trade compliance software, where you can configure a 4-eye approval requirement for compliance rule configuration changes. This duality check and staging of changes avoids issues. For example, a mistake in a compliance rule configuration could lead to orders being blocked incorrectly, or worse – permit orders that should have triggered a compliance breach

Flexible Investment Management Data Models

Limina is designed to help you increase investment data trust. To achieve full trust in the numbers you see in the system, we embed traditional EDM functionality as part of a layer in the Investment management system.

For example, the IDM Solution has carefully designed Investment management data models. We developed the data models to simplify setup and mapping with other systems while providing flexibility to enrich data with custom data fields.

The security master in Limina IMS is market data vendor-agnostic, with out-of-the-box integrations fully managed by Limina. You can extend the security master with custom fields and validation rules to meet your firm’s need for required and optional fields.

Example Use Cases of Limina’s Investment Data Management Solution

When setting up bespoke compliance rules leveraging external 3rd party data (ESG and risk classifications, analytics, etc.)
When trading instruments not yet available at your market data provider, such as primary market workflows in fixed-income
When overruling your market data provider in cases where their instrument data might not be accurate (e.g. issuer data on specific small-cap or emerging market stocks)
When enriching transactions with data needed in downstream solutions, such as required for settlement instructions, TCA calculations or regulatory reporting

Principles

We started our mission in 2014 with a blank canvas and a set of principles that we believe are critical for how an Investment Management System (IMS) should be built and delivered:

OPEN

We believe an IMS should enable change by connecting to any 3rd party system or service provider. If you want to launch new funds or change your operating model, an open IMS should make that faster and more cost-efficient.

EXCEPTION-BASED

Trusting the data in the system is essential for Front Office decisions and governance in operational processes. Your team shouldn’t have to spend valuable time tracking down potential issues; the system should find and flag them automatically.

SUPPORTED BY PEERS

We believe the best customer support for Asset Managers comes when the team you work with have experience in Investment Management. Dedicated team members from the industry learn your business and can assist you most effectively.

HOLISTIC & CROSS-ASSET

An IMS should be cross-asset and cover workflows from start to finish without jumping between systems. This increases productivity, allows superior oversight, and enables operational controls.