Despite being a growing reservoir of funds under management, this critically important pool of capital is confronting mounting problems collating and disseminating key data in a timely manner.
The ratings house is pinning its growth strategy on a revamped methodology that increases the emphasis on governance to 25 per cent – a timely move considering APRA’s proposed reforms.
Rashmi launches fintech manager research business
(pictured: Hansi Mehrotra)
Hansi (Rashmi) Mehrotra, a former senior consultant at Mercer in Australia, and before that at van Eyk Research, has launched a new managed funds research platform in the region, known as ‘Diligence Vault’.
After leaving Mercer in 2011, after nine years with the firm, she returned to India, helping to manage a funds management conference and publishing business and starting a financial education business known as The Money Hans.
She said last week that she would continue to operate those business lines in India but is focusing back in Australia on the new research business.
She has bought the Asia Pacific rights to the business, which is a recent fintech startup based in New York, which takes advantage of manager RFP information that can be tailored with the users’ own questions and information from meetings and other notes. It also has a ‘chat’ function for direct communication between manager and advisor or consultant.
“Another benefit of the service,” Mehrotra said, “is that the manager can choose who sees its information and who doesn’t. It’s a great fintech tool which enables investors or advisors to analyse and compare managers in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion.”
According to the company, DiligenceVault delivers a “data-driven research platform”. This includes:
- Leverage strategy focused DDQ/RFP templates to improve response quality
- Enterprise-ready technology focused on a user’s experience
- Benefit of braking down the silos between long-only, alternative, and strategy investment teams.
Mehrotra said that Diligence Vault had an SAS (software as service) business model, and has different pricing bands depending on a customer’s circumstances, starting from about US$10,000 per year.
