MAIA Technology’s Mark Veevers and Jago Westmacott explain how cloud-based technology can provide greater flexibility for quantitative fund managers.

Having lived through one of the biggest operational challenges the hedge fund industry has ever faced, fund managers can now start to think about post-Covid life. But we know that many quant fund managers continue to face obstacles in their day-to-day operations, particularly with the technology platforms that they are using.

Historically, many front- and middle-office technology system providers have installed on-premise, creating considerable constraints for fund managers. Such systems can often perform poorly, are inflexible and are difficult to maintain and upgrade. Not ideal for the fast-paced environment of quantitative trading, where every second can count.

As such, many fund managers that we speak with are looking for service providers that can provide them with new, cloud-native technology that doesnt involve any technical debt. They often need help rebuilding their ecosystem from the ground up.

At the same time, the operating environment is becoming ever more complicated as an increasing amount of regulation creates more operational challenges for fund managers. This puts fund managers under more pressure at a time when post-Covid market conditions are making it more difficult to make significant returns.

Thats where MAIA Technology can step in and help fund managers with technology ready to adapt to whatever challenges are put in their way.

Our technology stack is entirely cloud-native. We have a deployment and upgrade regime, that allows us to upgrade our system on a weekly basis with practically no input required from the client. The system also provides exceptional scalability and flexibility, adapting as our clients needs change.

Our systems architecture is built using individual engines that encapsulate and distribute functionality communicating via high-performance proprietary messaging. This means that we can provide a flexible and scalable service that can handle hundreds of thousands of orders per day as well as being able to quickly react to events evolving the system in line with data and workflow changes.

Going above and beyond

But one of the things that really sets us apart from other technology providers is our Client Gateway, which provides full programmatic control over everything, from order-raising to compliance and order execution to data management. Its a really critical component for quant fund managers.

Many technology service providers will be able to offer APIs that plug into your systems. However, our Client Gateway goes above and beyond the APIs that many technology platforms provide. It allows for a very rich integration so that the user can get notified programmatically as events occur within the system. Its a reactive integration; youll get notified as market or system events trigger effects across the platform.

Our platform can also incorporate whatever bespoke functionalities our clients might have into a new engine, which means they can rely on the robustness of our systems and will also have plenty of support.

Building stronger relationships

Being cloud-native has been particularly important during the past 18 months during the Covid-19 pandemic. We were able to update our systems remotely and continue providing a high level of support to our clients without being physically in their offices or homes.

But the hard lessons learned during the pandemic have also resulted in greater efficiencies for our clients.

While pre-pandemic many of our client relationships were based on in-person meetings, we have now embraced collaboration tools in our ongoing day-to-day processes. This has allowed us to introduce new functionalities remotely and enabled us to engage even more with our clients. For a client-centric organisation like MAIA Technology, communication is essential, and collaboration tools help us build closer relationships and resolve any issues they might be having.

The flexibility and transparency built into our system ensure clients have a powerful and open platform that will continue to adapt.

For example, we have recently implemented a solution that allows clients to launch thousands of engines into the public cloud at the click of a button, reducing the processing time from days to minutes.

Another client needed to dynamically recalculate portfolio risk factors as they traded. To tackle this, we implemented a solution whereby the MAIA framework could react to intraday trades and recalculate positions and risk factors in real-time as their orders were executed.

Theyre just a couple of examples of how we aim to provide best service to our clients.

First-hand knowledge

Having been born within an asset management business, we know first-hand the many challenges that fund managers face. Since our launch in 2020, weve continued to innovate because as our clients business grows, we want them to know that we stand ready to support them however we can.

Our team are not just technology experts; they also have a passion for customer service and putting the client first. Thats because we understand how important it is to have a joined-up approach to make sure we can make better decisions with greater speed and accuracy.

As a relatively new firm, were not burdened by legacy code or technical debt, which means we can offer our clients a clean tech stack. And were continuing to extend some of our technology capabilities, such as adding support for new programming languages.

We believe that we offer a system with all the characteristics traditionally important to systematic fund managers. And combining that with programmatic control via our Client Gateway creates an exciting solution for technology-led firms.