For some years it has been common for experienced investors to ‘gear’ or ‘leverage’ their investments by borrowing money from a lender, normally a bank, using the existing investment as security. The borrowed funds can then be invested in turn to make an additional return on the original investment. Foundations Capital conceived of a new type of investment fund operating on this principle, offering investors the benefits of gearing with fewer risks and potentially higher returns. No software system in existence could manage such a fund, so Assanka created one.

The Foundations fund aims to achieve an additional 4-6% return on the value of investors’ portfolios by gradual leveraging, but in a unique way that does not involve the usual levels of risk, volatility, cost, restriction, and administration. An existing life policy portfolio (or other suitable asset) is assigned to the Foundations Program and its collateral value is used to participate in a collectivised borrowing and reinvestment Program. Provided that the asset participates in the program for at least five years, the investor will receive the additional profit generated upon exit.

We began with an extensive requirements gathering exercise combining analysis of the program documentation, interviews with key stakeholders, and observation. The main participants in the business are located in both the Isle of Man and Guernsey, but also travel extensively and are rarely in the same location. We were able to create a specification for a system that fulfilled the procedural requirements of fund administration as laid out in the offering document, but which also achieved a greater degree of automation than the client and the administrators had thought possible, while retaining the flexibility to deal with individual circumstances.

Development of a system

Due to the distributed nature and mobility of the user base, and the desire to retain flexibility in the choice of administrators, as well as the inherent advantages of no per-user licensing and installation issues, the system was designed to be web-based. This also enables Assanka to provide support easily and efficiently, and for entire organisations of new users to be enrolled in a matter of minutes.

The entire development schedule and process was managed by Assanka, keeping all stakeholders up to date despite widely spaced geography. We pro-actively prompted client deliverables to ensure that we were able to achieve critical path milestones without unnecessary delay. The new system launched on time, and to budget.

An orderly transition

Whilst Foundations did not have a dedicated software system set up already, the fund had been running for just over a year and administration had been conducted using spreadsheets and a rudimentary Microsoft Access database. These tools were reaching the limits of their capacity, but contained live data that needed to be migrated. We imported the data from these sources and continued to operate both in parallel for a month, during which we were able to identify and correct errors in the data.

Smooth running

During each monthly cycle of operation, the Foundations System manages data on participants and assets, maintains ledgers and runs regular processes to allocate points and profits according to the Foundations rules. All these calculations are performed automatically, efficiently and accurately by a system designed around the needs of this fund.

Whilst the system takes responsibility for most calculations, it also ensures data integrity is maintained. All data operations performed by the system are transactional, ensuring that updates are never left in an incomplete or partially complete state, and rolling back to a known safe state in the event that an update or series of updates fails.

Although users of the system must be experienced fund managers and familiar with the rules of the Foundations program, they need not be familiar with the system itself. Martin Treanor, Sales Director says:

Assanka helped us to envisage a solution that would be both robust and flexible. Accuracy in reporting is vital to our proposition and so too is the need to efficiently relay information to our customers, distributors and counterparties. Assanka’s approach was refreshing because they started with a blank canvas and then fully researched the unique complexities of our business before they began to formulate a proposal that addressed our needs. We are delighted with the results which not only accommodate our current system needs but also provide us with a stable yet flexible platform from which to support further growth and development. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Assanka and are excited about future opportunities to further enhance our services

Bespoke reporting

We assessed the administrators’ and promoters’ requirements for reporting, and produced a range of reports in Excel-compatible CSV and Word-compatible RTF formats, allowing the users the greatest degree of flexibility over the report output and formatting. The layout of form letters and statements was designed to take account of the entirely bespoke Foundations brand requirements, providing consistent style across all client-facing documentation.

For audit purposes the system also retains a permanent copy of every report generated and provides a searchable index of these previously generated reports, whether they be internal reports, spreadsheets, statements or form letters.

Access and oversight

Access to the system is made from any internet-connected computer and secured with SSL encryption. Each user is configured for access to appropriate parts of the system and data relevant to their role, whether they be an administrator, promoter or support engineer. Information is restricted according to each user’s role.

Having securely identified each user logged in, the system also logs each data operation performed along with the identity of the user that actioned it. This audit trail enables all activity to be traced back easily to the moment that the data was changed.

Triple strength support

Our approach to support works on three levels – Preventative, Proactive and Reactive. We aim to prevent the majority of potential problems before they occur by ensuring that hardware and operating systems are up to date, systems are adequately protected and all activity on the system is properly validated and logged. Automatic backup systems run daily to archive data to an off-site location, ready to rapidly restore in the event of a problem.

Occasionally problems do occur, and when they do, Assanka’s advanced error handling system detects and logs the error, files a complete report with our support management system, and provides a tracking code to the user allowing correspondence on the issue to be traced back to the original fault quickly and efficiently. In this way, we usually discover problems proactively, and often resolve them before anyone is aware that an error has occurred.

Finally, all Assanka’s web based software is built to incorporate our web helpdesk as part of the integrated user experience. This means that reactive support can be obtained quickly and easily without needing any further contact information, passwords or reference numbers. We track our response to every support request via the web helpdesk, recording response and resolution times to ensure conformance with our SLA obligations. We offer SLAs on four levels to match the client’s requirements, so Foundations selected the response level that suited them.

Where the problem relates to the client’s ability to contact the system over the web, or where they simply prefer to pick up the phone, we also operate a telephone support service, available 24 hours a day.

Ongoing development

We continue to advise Foundations on the best ways to achieve higher efficiency as their fund grows, including barcode tracking of application forms, and automatic parsing of PDF statements from asset providers to avoid the need to key in data.