Hedge Funds

Today, hedge funds represent a growing and significant portion of overall trading in the marketplace. As infrastructure for growth and performance is a key concern of fund managers, many funds lock into prime broker systems and processes when the fund is set up. While this may serve prime broker business models, it limits the ability of the fund’s managers to access multiple prime brokers, and, over time, places constraints on the fund’s ability to operate freely.

Hedge funds require the following from a trading solution:

Broker neutrality and access
Elimination of implicit and explicit trading costs
Easy deployment
Cost-effectiveness
Multiple prime-broker connectivity
Compliance

AFA solves the hedge fund dilemma by delivering Integrated Order Processing (IOP)™ and helping them take a trade from execution to prime broker settlement on a single platform.

Money Managers

Today, money manager performance is increasingly related to reduction in trading costs and the need to unbundle execution services from research. Critical to this cost reduction effort is the ability to gain direct market access, to establish seamless connectivity with multiple custodians, and to trading compliance.

AFA solves the money manger dilemma by delivering cost-sensitive Integrated Order Processing (IOP)™ that allows managers to focus on improving fund performance and establishing best practices.

Broker Dealers

For broker dealers, profitability in today’s market environment is highly dependent on managing costs associated with electronic rather than traditional (worked) order flow. Mid-tier brokers provide services currently available only through larger firms.

AFA helps mid-tier broker dealers by allowing them to deliver an order processing capability to their clients which not only replicates, but improves upon the services currently offered through their competitors.

Family Offices

Family offices today face the same challenges as other institutional money managers: the drive for improved performance; the need to rationalize costs; and the migration to technological platforms that enable more efficient stock picking, trading, and order processing.

AFA works to address these challenges for the family office. By using AFA’s Integrated Order Processing model, family offices can quickly update their internal management to reduce costs, improve auditing and monitoring capability, and advancing to an electronic rather than paper-based process.