Enabling Data-as-a-Service on Legacy Platforms

In a previous blog, we wrote about the competitive edge that data-rich financial institutions and solution vendors can gain by offering ‘Data-as-a-Service‘.

But what are some of the key considerations when it comes to cloud-enabling a firm’s existing legacy platforms? How difficult is it to offer live data or real-time data sharing through commonly used desktop apps such as Excel?

A bank, broker or asset manager might want to take on-premise data that sits on an internal platform – trade data for example – and seamlessly share that to the cloud, thus removing the need for end users to be onsite or to remote desktop in via a VPN.

Or a solution vendor with products designed for on-premise installation or access via dedicated lines and specific client software, might wish to go cloud-based in order to offer real-time or on-demand data sharing into existing applications and workflows without its customers having to rely on clunky FTP or building to APIs.

The good news is that enabling Data-as-a-Service on these legacy platforms is not as difficult as it might seem.

Enabling Data-as-a-Service on Legacy Platforms –

Real-time data sharing in the real world

Amongst financial institutions, many firms, on both the buy side and the sell side, are looking to gain greater leverage from their own internal systems by cloud-enabling them, thus improving the service they offer to internal colleagues and external clients. Whether that’s through making real-time data available within chat and collaborative workflow apps, feeding live data to and from Excel or sharing data via other desktop apps, there are many benefits that such an approach offers.

A good real-world example of this is the e-commerce fixed income department of a well-known bank, which uses its own internally-developed platform to generate trade axes from its current bond inventory. Working together with ipushpull, the bank has cloud-enabled this internal platform with secure, real-time data sharing, so that customers are automatically updated with new trade axes via their own choice of desktop apps (such as Symphony or Excel) and can respond with indications of interest directly from within those apps.

From a solution vendor perspective, there are many companies that have fantastic products and services, but live data sharing is restricted by the fact that their customers need to have software installed onsite or can only access data through FTP or API integration with a centralised service. A number of these vendors are now seeing the benefits of cloud-enabling these platforms to offer Data-as-a-Service.

Again, it’s worth citing a couple of real-world examples.

The first is a risk solution vendor that offers intra-day margin calculations. They have a great product that enables customers to load up their position data and calculate span margining for those positions on the fly. However, the product was originally designed to be installed on premise at the customer’s site, which made it expensive and meant that it could only be sold to larger institutions. By working with ipushpull to create a multi-tenant version with a secure cloud presentation layer, the vendor can broaden the service out to a wider, more diverse customer base and offer more affordable subscription-based or on-demand pricing models.

The second example is a data vendor that has a centralised multi-tenant platform, where customers download large data files and upload trade files via secure FTP. Again, their legacy installation and onboarding process meant that their commercial model was limited to larger customers. ipushpull helped the vendor cloud-enable this service to make the data available on demand, which has now opened up the service to a much wider group of potential customers.

Seamless integration of data sharing tools

The common thread with all of these legacy systems is that they handle data, with a set of inputs and outputs. And there is no fundamental, technical reason why they should not be cloud-enabled with data sharing tools.

This is what ipushpull does. At the front end, we deliver these systems as true services with a unified presentation layer via the common desktop apps that people are already using. At the back end we develop APIs that plug into these legacy technologies. From the perspective of both service providers and end users, this is a completely seamless process. Services connect to ipushpull via the cloud and we take care of the rest, i.e. marshalling the data, providing access controls, presenting the data into multiple desktop apps and marshalling data back and forth to the service from within those apps in real-time.

Service providers benefit from not only being able to offer live and on-demand access through desktop apps like Excel, Slack, Symphony, Microsoft Teams and Eikon messenger, desktop containers like ChartIQ Finsemble and Openfin, and internal platforms and applications like pricing engines, risk systems and OMSs, without have to completely re-platform their existing systems, but also being able to deliver data-driven custom notifications into those apps based upon user-defined parameters.

In summary, Data-as-a-Service offers many benefits, and there is no reason that firms should be restricted to on-premise deployment or to API/SFTP integration. By working with a trusted partner such as ipushpull, firms that are looking to cloud-enable their internal platforms can minimise their internal development costs, broaden their reach and rapidly accelerate their time to market.

Download “Fintech’s Next Frontier: Data-as-a-Service” our Financial Markets Insights report. In collaboration with Natwest Markets, Maystreet, Euromoney TRADEDATA and Engine, part of The Investment Association, ipushpull explores the importance of Data-as-a-Service in facilitating remote working and accelerating digital initiatives within the financial markets industry.

April 4, 2019April 4, 2019

Former Eurex CIO Brendan Bradley joins ipushpull, a Real-time Workflow Automation platform

London, UK – 04th April 2019:

The award-winning live data sharing and real-time workflow automation platform is pleased to formally announce the appointment of Brendan Bradley as Chairman of ipushpull.

Brendan has over 30 years of experience in financial services and a track record for leading the field of innovation. As a former Board Member and Chief Innovation Officer at Eurex Exchange (part of Deutsche BÃ¶rse), he was responsible for championing new ideas and finding opportunities within a changing market landscape particularly within the fintech space. Brendan has also played a large part in the development of the European futures and options industry with LIFFE, DTB and Eurex and helped shape the exchange landscape. More recently, Brendan co-founded Seismic Foundry, an early stage capital markets focused investment fund.

Having spent many years advising businesses within fintech and financial markets, Brendan is now working with ipushpull supporting the board and executive team.

Brendan Bradley comments:

“I strive to stay ahead in terms of product innovation and I strongly believe ipushpull are leading this with their cutting-edge platform. It was an easy choice to be involved. Businesses are all about data and workflow which ipushpull integrate into messaging and chat rather than emails and files. Combined with live data interoperability and automation of crucial workflow’s this is a company to watch!”

This appointment comes at a time when financial services enterprises have been employing ipushpull’s workflow solutions to introduce data interoperability and automation in key areas such as pre-trade negotiation workflow and post-trade reconciliation and resolution workflow. The platform has gained traction within investment banks, asset managers, brokers and trading firms.

ipushpull is excited to have Brendan on board to aid in the innovation strategy of the ipushpull platform. Brendan is also serving as a non-executive director of ipushpull.

About ipushpull

ipushpull is a real-time data sharing and workflow automation platform. Used across sell-side and buy-side, and front to back office, ipushpull improves workflow efficiency by allowing cross application secure, audited, access-controlled live data sharing, collaboration, and workflow automation. The API first platform handles static, live, and streaming data with APIs, integrations, and connectors into many data platforms and services. For more information visit ipushpull.com.

Contacts

ipushpull

Matthew Cheung / CEO / +44 (0) 20 3808 4805 / info@ipushpull.com

September 13, 2018

ipushpull Added to New ChartIQ Fintech Ecosystem

London, UK – 13th September 2018: ipushpull are pleased to announce they are joining the Finsemble partner ecosystem, part of ChartIQ. pushpull is an “API first”platform improving workflow efficiency by allowing secure live data sharing and automation between desktop applications like Microsoft Excel, databases, mobile devices, and cloud services in real-time. The partnership between ipushpull and ChartIQ extends significant value to Finsemble customers who want to enhance data sharing and automation capabilities, create top performing workflows quickly, and increase efficiency in the front office and beyond.

Finsemble is the only desktop integration platform that provides institutions with production ready, customizable technology that connects any number of disparate applications together. The Finsemble Ecosystem allows clients to discover, choose, and combine third-party applications into a custom desktop experience for their users. Additionally, the ecosystem accelerates the integration of leading fintech applications that organizations depend on and does so with no development work for the customer. Supported by a group of fintech vendors, Finsemble drives firms’ desktop strategies from vision to reality, faster.

ipushpull, now a premier partner of the Finsemble Ecosystem, has won numerous awards for innovation (from both Symphony and Benzinga) and is widely used in the industry. Matthew Cheung, CEO of ipushpull, comments, “the application interoperability that Finsemble offers combined with ipushpull’s data interoperability provides a seamless, efficient workflow not only for the front office but right across capital market functions. We are delighted to be part of the Finsemble Ecosystem which allows rapid deployment and plug-and-play functionality compared to existing applications and projects which take months or even years to roll out.”

The integration of ipushpull into Finsemble is the result of a tier 1 bank requesting out-of-the-box functionality and specific workflow between apps for their front office. “In an industry where critical data is often locked away in Excel workbooks, ipushpull allows clients to consolidate, distribute, and collaborate on that data in real time. Having ipushpull join our ecosystem adds bidirectional Excel integration to the growing list of capabilities of the open Finsemble desktop,”adds Dan Schleifer, CEO of ChartIQ.

About ipushpull
ipushpull is a cloud based real-time data sharing and workflow automation platform. Used across sell-side and buy-side, and front to back office, ipushpull improves workflow efficiency by allowing cross application secure, audited, access-controlled live data sharing, collaboration, and workflow automation. The API first platform handles static, live, and streaming data with APIs, integrations, and connectors into many data platforms and services. For more information visit ipushpull.com.

About ChartIQ/Finsemble
ChartIQ provides HTML5 components and the Finsemble integration platform to banks, brokerages, trading platforms, and financial portals worldwide. Using ChartIQ technology, large organizations are able to assemble and integrate different types of applications in hours instead of months. ChartIQ establishes new desktop experiences out of the box and provides production ready solutions that clear a path to faster deployments and better looking products. With over 250+ global customers, ChartIQ is one of the fastest growing companies in fintech and serves many of the largest names in finance, including Factset, Fidessa, Nasdaq, and eToro to name a few. For more information, visit chartiq.com.

Contacts

ipushpull
Matthew Cheung
CEO
+44 (0) 20 3808 4805
info@ipushpull.com

ChartIQ
Hanni Chehak
Director of Marketing
+1 (800) 821 8147
hanni@chartiq.com

November 9, 2017November 9, 2017

Share spreadsheets into Slack – app takes data interoperability to the next level

In a recent blog we highlighted that if chat and collaboration platforms are looking to replace email then ipushpull is positioned to replace file attachments and file sharing.

In the past few years, driven by version control frustrations, email fatigue, security concerns and the desire for faster, more interactive communication, the sharing of information via email is increasingly being overshadowed by a growing range of collaboration tools.

This space is occupied by a combination of familiar tech heavyweights together with specialist collaboration app providers where Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook compete with the likes of Slack, Symphony and Atlassian’s Stride.

The development of this new set of messaging and collaboration applications offers new channels for ipushpull‘s real-time data interoperability for end users in applications they already use. ipushpull is one of the first providers to really push to the limit the capabilities of these new collaboration tools, making it easy to share spreadsheets into Slack and Symphony along with other data.

In recent years, Slack has become one of the most popular and established applications in the chat space and has seen incredible growth with 6 million active daily users. It offers cross-team channels, private groups and 1-to-1 direct messages for messaging as well as file sharing.

However, even though Slack allows spreadsheets to be uploaded on the go, there is still no way to view them in the app itself. For sharing data from Excel spreadsheets, this can be a big drawback introducing the common problems of version control and collaboration difficulties associated with files. While users of Google Sheets still have to jump out of Slack (and thus context switch) to see their data, leaving ipushpull as the only app on the market that allows users to share spreadsheets into Slack.

How to share spreadsheets into Slack with ipushpull

Until now there has been no way to view selected ranges of data from spreadsheets within the Slack chat platform. ipushpull‘s Slack app offers just this – the ability to pull a selected range of data from a live spreadsheet directly into a Slack channel whether that’s a snapshot, live data or streaming data, in a secure encrypted form, so everyone on the channel can view and collaborate on the very latest information.

The ipushpull Slack app can support a wide range of use cases where customers have a need to share data in a secure way. Static, live or streaming data may be shared within the channel manually or via simple ipushpull Slack bots. Let’s explore a couple of use cases to explain how this functionality can be used.

Snapshot, or static, data

Snapshot data maybe shared manually or automatically when certain user-defined criteria are met. For example, a manager of a chain of retail stores may share sales data with management or staff by copying and pasting data into a chat channel, instead they can improve scalability and efficiency of their service by using a bot (also provided by ipushpull of course) to share the current state of sales or automatically alert management when a sales target is hit. All from a spreadsheet connected to Slack via ipushpull.

Live data

Live data enables someone in a team, working in a collaborative way, to make updates to data in their Excel spreadsheet, or local database, for example, and have that automatically – in real time – update in the ‘team’ Slack channel. For example, a multi-national enterprise, with a bid team working in diverse locations, can use the chat and ipushpull to collaborate on a financial model in a spreadsheet with changes reflected in real time within the Slack channel. The ‘no files’ model combined with the use of live data ensures the model is maintained in a single version and is always up to date.

Share data in Slack

Streaming data

Streaming data allows a real-time ‘ticking’ feed of data to be viewed in Slack. For example, whether monitoring the US stock market or live sporting results from one of ipushpull‘s streaming ‘public’ pages, or providing access to ‘in-house’ private streaming data in manufacturing or health sectors, ipushpull delivers the ability to share true real-time updates in fast changing environments where access to up-to-the-second information makes all the difference.

These use cases demonstrate just some of the ways ipushpull’s chat integrations can be used to enhance and improve workflow and communication within organisations. And with the recent launch of shared channels within Slack, which support intra-company collaboration, there will be many more to come.

So chat is great – but it takes more than just chat to make real improvements in business efficiency. That’s why ipushpull is focussed on taking chat to the next level.

Co-author: John Eccleston

September 28, 2017September 28, 2017

ipushpull at Symphony Innovate 2017

The ipushpull team is excited to be heading to New York for the annual Symphony Innovate conference on October 4^th 2017. Come and visit us at our booth for a demo of our popular Symphony integration and find out more about how our customers are using it. And don’t miss our CEO, Matthew Cheung, participating in the Operations Panel alongside

other thought leaders from the technology and investment banking worlds, discussing how Symphony’s technology is optimising communications internally and between financial institutions.

#SI2017 Symphony Innovate – The Event Itself

Symphony Innovate 2017 is a one-day conference led by Symphony, in which industry-leading technology and financial executives, engineers and thought leaders from around the world are brought together to discuss how technology enables the ‘power of community’ for the financial services industry. The event will see executives from leading technology firms and investment banks such as Google and Goldman Sachs, take the stage alongside executives from FinTech firms such as ipushpull.

At Symphony Innovate ipushpull will showcase its Symphony app, which combines secure enterprise messaging with live data sharing and collaboration. Whilst Symphony provides an alternative to email and outdated, expensive enterprise messaging applications, ipushpull provides a replacement for file sharing and email attachments and facilitates easy-to-use cross-platform data sharing and collaboration.

About ipushpull

ipushpull is a secure cloud service for sharing and collaborating on live data which links directly into the apps our customers already use, including Microsoft Excel, Symphony, websites and mobile. We help our customers to:

Improve workflow: by sharing data and removing the need to share files, users can work on data inside of existing applications they use – which means no application context switching or version control problems
Increase efficiency: improving collaboration and communication by always having access to the most up-to-date information
Reduce risk: eliminating the risks of file sharing by controlling, tracking, and reducing email attachments

The partnership with Symphony means ipushpull is embedded within the Symphony messaging platform. The ipushpull app for Symphony lets you share data with your Symphony network, collaborate on it, and link it in real time to your spreadsheets, databases, cloud services and internal systems.

About Symphony

Founded in 2014, Symphony is a secure, cloud-based, messaging and collaboration platform with a $1 billion+ valuation and over 200,000 users. Symphony has been backed by major investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley, and has become hugely popular amongst financial institutions across the globe. Security and compliance is at the core of the platform while end users benefit from improved workflow efficiency by replacing email communication and legacy chat platforms.

Since its founding, Symphony has allowed its partners to integrate HTML5 applications within its platform, thus enabling developers to build rich user experiences, and facilitate collaboration whilst minimising context switching. The ipushpull App extends Symphony’s capabilities by enabling users to collaborate on data within the platform in real-time.

June 16, 2016June 16, 2016

Microsoft LinkedIn Acquisition Creating New Opportunities for Data Collaboration

Microsoft sent shockwaves across the Fintech industry this week as they announced their LinkedIn acquisition for a whopping $26.2 billion! Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, released a public overview of the agreement that begins to touch upon how this will transform data collaboration and integration on the web; things that iPushPull has been working to improve with their Excel plugin.

The negotiations for the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history began a few years ago when Nadella and LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner met at a networking event. Until now, Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp has held second place for the world’s biggest tech purchase of $19 billion in 2014; more than 12% of Facebook’s total market value at the time. AOL remains the industry’s clear largest with their $106 billion acquisition of Time Warner. Despite being acclaimed as the most expensive merger, it is also considered to be the least successful, often being labelled as the worst merger of all time. Let’s hope that Microsoft won’t be following suit.

Nadella and Weiner recently began working more closely, meeting for dinner in April this year to discuss future plans for the companies. Public opinion suggests that they are looking to maximise their synergies after the recent troubles they have been facing. The question on everyone’s mind seems to be how they are going to amalgamate the different services?

Integrating Microsoft Office with LinkedIn

Nadella explained how the purchase of LinkedIn is “the coming together of the professional cloud and the professional network.”This is the key focus as they start diving into the best means of integrating their services. They are looking into ways of including the Microsoft Office suite in order to enhance the LinkedIn user experience. So far, a great deal of emphasis has been put on the development of LinkedIn’s newsfeed. Other examples include incorporating PowerPoint and Excel spreadsheets, as well as data collaborations to help connect users through their email, calendar and Skype.

LinkedIn acquisition integration of services with Microsoft — Snap shot from Microsoft’s brief on their LinkedIn acquisition regarding integration of services

At the moment, Microsoft needs to rely on other platforms such as Facebook to access a social graph as they don’t have their own. LinkedIn offers that social graph and due to its professional nature, will be directly beneficial as Microsoft offers professional based services.

Microsoft is particularly interested in one of LinkedIn’s subsidiaries, Lynda, a service for professional training videos. They have already suggested at looking into embedding those videos into Excel and their other services.

Data Collaboration and Security

The problem of sharing and consolidating data from different locations is a huge problem today. As these companies merge, they will attempt to minimise this issue by pulling together the silos of information available on user’s LinkedIn and Microsoft Office platforms. Microsoft will be gaining access to more than 400 million LinkedIn user profiles which can give them helpful insight into what people value when searching for jobs. By utilising this knowledge, they can future develop their software to new heights. However, as it helps to share people’s information, cyber security issues are always close to follow.

Here at iPushPull, we also realise and attempt to solve issues of data collaboration, sharing, and security by working with Excel. Together these types of technologies will all work together in creating a more coherent web with easier and safer access to information.