VitalVest specializes in Secondary Private Market Technology Advisory, Execution and Processing

Secondary liquidity is critical to driving a fast moving enterprise’s growth. There are many Secondary Private Markets or Marketplace for Alternative Investments that provide liquidity if needed by offering secondary placement, to name a few are GATE Technologies, SecondMarket, SharesPost, Xpert Financial, MissionMarkets, NYPPEX etc. These so called Secondary Private Markets or Second Markets suffer from lack of a centralized marketplace or electronic access, making it difficult for participants to buy or sell alternative assets from Central location or well structured. With plenty of  Alternative Asset Classes (Private Stock Placement, Structured Products, Bankruptcy Claims, Foreclosure, Environmental Credits, Credit Card Debt, Public Equity) and lack of electronic market data and content to pre trade and post trade analytics it will be difficult for buyer or seller to judge the products strength or weakness. If you visit their websites most of these market places are registered with or member of  FINRA, MSRB and SIPC.

Will these Secondary Marketplace  (Second Markets) succeed or end up as a wholesale auction site for Alternative Assets Class like ebay is for goods?  Which company do you think has edge over the other and why? Do you think any of them can successfully navigate and aggregate transaction data and work more as a neutral interdealer broker in this space like  iCAP has done with the debt and equity markets and BondDesk has done with odd lot fixed income.

VitalVest has been instrumental providing technology consulting, suggesting technology and building custom .Net and Java trading System for Second Markets. If you require any help please feel free to consult us.

Investment Banks Outsourcing to India…. Does it work?

Investment Banks are outsourcing financial analysis and research overseas. Few big names have quietly hired Indian firms or set up their subsidiaries on the subcontinent to handle basic financial modeling and comparable analysis. Two main factors are driving this trend. First, it’s cheaper. Second, banks hope that by freeing senior analysts to concentrate on analysis rather than running numbers, they will produce better—and more—research. Outsourcing, which was once confined to junior and back office processes, has now moved to more business-critical functions such as equity and capital markets research.

Few Investment Banks have stoped sending their critical IT work to India. Their experience of outsourcing IT resources would suggest it does not work, since many of the deliverables are of such poor quality they have required almost total redevelopment ‘onshore’. IT firms in India did not have deep knowledge and experience with implementing Electronic Trading, Connectivity, Middle-office and Regulatory Compliance Reporting requirements. It was waste of time and money!