Your custom afs:TRADE system is designed using a modular, object-oriented approach. The main benefit of this technique is that we can combine any features you need from our vast library of experience without worrying that the necessary parts will work seamlessly with each other. Over the course of twenty years, we have built systems for a wide variety of customers on both sides of the market with distinct processing needs. Our modules capture and harness that complexity, allowing us to assemble just the features you need.

Functional Modules

Functional modules cover the basic units and relationships on a trading desk. This includes the participants, the securities, and the transactions and positions they generate.

General Purpose Modules

• Transactors - Authorized users, including access entitlements/security.

• Portfolios/Accounts - “Inside” accounts managed by the system’s owners.

• Fund Groups - Parental groupings of related portfolios.

• Desks - Logical sub-groups within the firm.  Portions of portfolios may be maintained by more than one desk, as in an equity mutual fund where one trading desk manages the stocks, while a different group manages the cash.

• Other Parties - “Outside” accounts (broker/dealers in buy-side systems; customers and other Street accounts in sell-side systems).

• Products - Security master table, organized by CUSIP or some other unique identifier. Includes attached schedules for call features, rate adjustments, MBS paydowns, price history, and special features.

• Corporate Actions - For equity products, a module to maintain splits, dividends, and special payouts.

• Issuers - For systems with issuer-based transactions (primarily money market securities), a template table for describing the characteristics of entities which issue securities. Also an integral part of the compliance engine. In some systems, maintains a consolidated list of outstanding maturities.

• Trade Tickets - Transaction entry. A wide variety of ticket options are available depending on which side of the market (buy side or sell side) you belong to, what types of securities you trade, block allocation strategies, and workflow requirements. In general, AFS tries to design tickets where a single form adapts to the needs of different instrument types and trading strategies.  The ticket history may be searched to find what has been purchased for an account, customer, or security.

• Trade Blotters - Real time listing of what has been traded. As with Position Lists, can be filtered by a wide variety of criteria, and can provide different formats based on user type.

• Position Lists (Holdings) - Real time listings of what is owned, organized by product, portfolio, and/or desk. Can be filtered by a wide variety of criteria, and can provide different formats based on user type.

• Maturity Schedules – Keep track of position maturity schedules for various issuers.

• Position Detail - For a single position, shows full details, including the “trading card” and a list of open lots.

• Financial Calculator - A place to perform calculations and what-if scenarios. The calculator underlies the Trade Tickets, but the Financial Calculator allows a more free-form approach.

• Yield Curves/Rate Runs - Maintains a history of daily yield curve movements.

• Finders - These windows let you find, filter, and order all sorts of data from your trading system, including positions, accounts, tickets, and products.  Once you have found the data you need you can drill down to select a specific item, or, with the click of a button, print a custom report or generate a file that can be opened in other applications like Microsoft Excel™.

Buy-Side Specific Modules

• Compliance Engine - For customers subject to regulatory restrictions, this module allows you to define and monitor the attributes by which you are restricted.  Includes lists of approved issuers, securities, and /or counterparties. The system uses this information in real time to guard against trades that would violate the restrictions.

Sell-Side Specific Modules

• Customer Positions - Keep track of what customers own, in addition to what is held in your own trading accounts.

• Clearance Activity - Keep track of settlement activities with clearing banks. This module includes reports for fails, box position, and purchase/sale blotters.

• Bid and Situation Lists - Keep track of what customers are trying to buy and sell.

Utilities

• Calendar – Administrative application for managing calendars for exchanges.  These calendars are used to determine default settlement dates for trading.

• Import/Export - AFS supports standard comma-delimited formats for importing and exporting data.

• Overnight Processing - Every night, this program maintains system data integrity by posting maturities and coupon payments, updating variable rate and put features, and posting forward settlements.

• Reports - Reports can range from simple trade blotters and portfolio listings to elaborate monthly customer statements that include graphs and tables. Reports are limited only by the user’s imagination. The database schema in afs:TRADE has been carefully organized not to require access to the financial calculator for report generation. Off the shelf reporting tools (for example, Crystal Reports™ or Microsoft Access™) may be used to generate custom reports.

• Security – Administrative function to enable/disable application features for individual users depending on their role in your organization.

• Ticket Printer - As tickets are completed, they may be automatically printed.