Strong forces are reshaping Asset and Wealth Management, with customers demanding more digital engagement and customisation. Relentless margin compression, combined with regulation and increased transparency, are forcing providers to re-think their businesses – shifting from a product model to a service model.

We speak with Pierre Mendelsohn, Founder and CEO of ALPIMA, about how advances in technology are enabling investment managers to respond.

1. What does ALPIMA do?
ALPIMA is a new generation B2B SaaS platform for investment management and product design. Focused on the front and middle office, we help our clients leverage the latest advances in data science and technology to help them design investment strategies, build and visualise portfolios in real time, manage money, and serve customers.

We created ALPIMA because we saw a persistent gap in the market in front office technology for years. Many teams in the industry are still using 20 or 30-year old technology to create new products and serve their customers. I set up ALPIMA in October 2014 from home, and in 2015 my co-founders joined, working from a small Regus office. We launched the platform in 2017 after 2.5 year of R&D and have added clients and functionality to the platform since then.
 

2. What problems are you solving?
Investment managers need to adapt to rapidly changing customer expectations across the value chain. Customers expect more transparency and the ability to quickly customise their offerings to their exact needs. Riddled by legacy systems, fragmented processes and high fixed costs, most incumbents are struggling to respond. Firms that do not respond in time face an existential risk.

Our solution is a SaaS platform that is modular and integrates with existing systems, connects multiple types of users on a single web-based interface for enhanced efficiency, faster product design, greater transparency and better information sharing – internally and with clients. ALPIMA combines the latest advances in technology and data science with in-depth industry experience to help clients improve the way they design products, build portfolios, run money and serve customers.

Results are impressive – clients are able to design, build, test, optimise and implement personalised, dynamic portfolios in seconds. Product design is accelerated by multiples of 10-100 and we can link client portfolios to strategies like Strategic and Tactical Asset Allocation (SAA and TAA).

As a result the Investment Management industry can move from a product to a service model – providing a better service to customers by offering customisation at scale.
 

3. What is Object Oriented Investing?
We treat each portfolio as a digital object that can be observed, modified, tested and optimised before it is implemented, very much like a digital version of an aircraft or a building before it is built. We call this Object-Oriented Investing.

On ALPIMA, you can create portfolios, and analyse them in great detail across past, present and future, bringing what is essentially a concept – a portfolio, a strategy – to life and understand it like never before. This results in a much quicker product creation cycle, improves decision making, and helps to improve client engagement. 
 

4. Who are your clients?
We work with Asset Managers and Wealth Managers to help them better service their customers. We strive to improve market transparency, which can lead to market growth for the benefit of all. The service can also be white labelled and offered direct to their customers.

Clients include Bank Julius Baer, Fidelity, Natixis, BlueBay and others.
 

5. How do you differentiate yourself from the competition?
ALPIMA is unique. Our modular platform is highly customisable – if you know what you want to do and the data is available, it can be done with ALPIMA.

No other firm can offer the same degree of transparency, speed, smart visualisation and personalisation.

ALPIMA was architected horizontally for the front office with user experience in mind, connecting to other systems in the middle and back office. We integrate within our client's infrastructure like a chip in a motherboard.

Our cloud-based service is offered as white labelled by default and does not require local installation and upgrades. Upgrades happen automatically.