Clearwater Analytics’ IPO Fuels Global Expansion

Clearwater Analytics is on a mission to revolutionise the world of investing.

For more than 15 years, Clearwater Analytics has provided a true SaaS solution for investment accounting and reporting that’s now trusted by more than 1,000 clients worldwide, including institutional investors in insurance, asset management, corporate treasury, the public sector, and more.

In September, Clearwater took an important step in furthering that mission through an IPO. The company is now listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CWAN.

Although this is an exciting achievement for the company, in many ways it’s business as usual at Clearwater. Clearwater has always prioritisedinvesting a large share of profits ”“ 25%+ back into research and development to ensure the continual improvement of the Clearwater solution and to meet evolving market needs. That commitment continues.

In recent years, Clearwater has also committed to a global expansion that enables the company to grow and support clients around the world. Going public helps support that expansion in Europe, a major part of Clearwater’s global team, where the company recently opened offices in Paris and Frankfurt, in addition to existing offices in London and Edinburgh. Clearwater also operates in the U.S., India, and Singapore.

“Clearwater has rapidly expanded our European client base, including adding some of the largest European financial institutions as clients”, said Colin Clunie, Head of EMEA Operations at Clearwater. “This shows the exciting opportunity we have to continue to grow in the region and deliver to our clients at a local level. It also enables us to attract the highest calibre of diverse talent to support our growth, foster innovation, and create solutions for tomorrow’s challenges.”

The Edinburgh operations centre which serves as a key operations hub for Clearwater has grown by 30% so far in 2021, and that’s expected to continue. Clearwater is building out capabilities at all levels ”“ from recent graduates to senior industry professionals. Further, the European team alone speaks 22 languages. This means Clearwater has the depth and expertise to provide world-class service tailored to the individual needs of its growing client list, regardless of location.

Clearwater’s SaaS solution automates and simplifies the complex tasks associated with investment accounting and reporting while providing clients with a complete and validated investment data set across their portfolios daily. For global teams, Clearwater’s multi-basis, multi-currency solution is accessed simply through a web browser, making it easy to work from any location and trust the entire team has access to a secure, single source of truth for investment data.

Scottish fintech Legado partners with MoneyHub

Today, Scottish fintech Legado announced a new partnership with open finance company Moneyhub.

Moneyhub customers will benefit from Legado’s encrypted personal Digital Vault services , enabling them to store their pension, life insurance and mortgage statements and policy documents securely and electronically.

By holding all those documents from different providers in one place, Moneyhub users can get a clearer picture of their financial histories and plan for the future. They will also be able to securely share those documents with selected third parties, such as advisers, friends and family. Each user will receive their own personal, portable and access-controlled vault, with features including after-death sharing and data integrations.

Legado is backed by UK insurer M&G and Edinburgh-based global platform-as-a-service provider FNZ, both part of the FinTech Scotland cluster.

Sam Seaton, CEO of Moneyhub said:

“As an Open Finance and Open Banking leader, Moneyhub truly is a hub for money, offering connections to pension and wealth management accounts, banking, insurance and investment, and more. And one thing all the various account types have in common is paperwork, which is why we have partnered with Legado to offer our clients a market-leading digital vault solution.”

Josif Grace, CEO & Founder of Legado said:

“As two technology leaders focused on helping businesses create exceptional digital experiences and consumers better prepare for the future, this partnership made a lot of sense. We are delighted to be working with the team at MoneyHub to create a world-class proposition.”

Big win for Scottish Fintech Origo

Origo is delighted that Capgemini and Origo have been appointed to supply the central digital architecture for the Pensions Dashboards Programme and will be working with the PDP to help deliver the service for the benefit of UK pensions holders.

Announced by the Pensions Dashboards Programme and the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) on 6 September 2021, the contract was awarded to Capgemini, who will partner with Origo to deliver the specified elements of the central digital architecture, namely the pensions finder service, consent and authorisation service and governance register, which will form a key part of the pensions dashboard ecosystem.

Origo has been fully committed to progressing pensions dashboards from the day the project was announced. Our 30-year history has been about delivering ground-breaking technology to make financial services more efficient and cost effective, and improve outcomes for savers and investors.

PDP stated that the Capgemini/Origo bid was successful “due to its quality and value for money, plus the credibility and expertise of both parties to deliver the contract.”

The procurement process

The procurement followed an extensive period of engagement by the PDP, with both the pensions industry and potential suppliers, which shaped the development of the technical requirements. This included several market engagement exercises and webinars to explain how the digital architecture will work and the policy background to the programme.

The five-month procurement started with the invitation to tender in April this year. The open and transparent process, used Lot 4a (Programmes and large projects ”“ covering Government official security classification) of the Crown Commercial Service Technology Services 2 framework agreement. This approach complies with all necessary government spend controls and provided a speedy, effective method to procure the digital architecture.

The successful conclusion to the procurement marks the end of the first phase of the Pensions Dashboards Programme, and is a major step towards bringing pensions dashboards to life. The programme now moves into its develop and test phase, as indicated on the PDP programme timeline. The focus now shifts to building the software elements that will make pensions dashboards work and testing the ecosystem, with the volunteer organisations that have signed up to be part of the testing phases.

Richard James, Programme Director of the Pensions Dashboards Programme at MaPS, commented on the day of the announcement: “Today’s announcement of a digital technology supplier marks the moment when dashboards move off the drawing board, and become real. I’m delighted to partner with Capgemini and Origo, who really impressed us with the quality of their bid; and whose deep pensions industry expertise coupled with extensive experience of delivering major programmes makes them superb partners for the programme. PDP now formally moves into its delivery phase, and I am looking forward to working with our new supplier, and across the industry, to make a success of pensions dashboards, and enable individuals to take control of their retirement planning.

Paul Margetts, Managing Director of Capgemini in the UK echoed our own delight “to have been chosen as the digital technology partner to build the core architecture and support the significant milestone of bringing pensions dashboards to life.” He added: “We believe our success is founded not only upon our expertise and deep capabilities but also through our strategic collaboration with Origo, who is dedicated to improving the financial services industry’s operating efficiencies. We are looking forward to working with the Pensions Dashboards Programme to support them in delivering a seamless service that will allow UK pension holders the control and visibility to take action and plan for the future.”

Concept to reality

Guy Opperman, Minister for Pensions, said that the announcement was “a crucial milestone for the dashboards programme, taking things to the next phase, where the concept starts to become a reality.

He added: “We’ve already put in place the primary legislation needed to pave the way for pensions dashboards. Now the programme, in partnership with Capgemini and Origo, can start to implement the technical elements, bringing the delivery of the first functioning dashboards even closer.

“I have previously urged pension schemes to get their data ready for dashboards. My message remains ”“ schemes should be improving their data quality as part of their preparations for participating. The clock is ticking and this achievement is yet another reminder that schemes must be getting ready to connect.”

Anyone interested in keeping up to date with programme updates and future call for inputs can sign up to receive the monthly Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) newsletter, and following PDP on Twitter and LinkedIn.