Vendor Integrates Compliance Accounting Applications

Vendor Linedata Services is enhancing its compliance service to allow investment managers to load data automatically from accounting and recordkeeping applications. The data could include securities in portfolio accounts or broker commissions. Linedata Compliance compares all trades transacted by the user against the rules and guidelines set by the investment manager. The enhancements follow Linedata's acquisition of Hackensack, N.J.-based Global Investment Systems last October. Linedata Compliance is a Web-based service designed for use by compliance officers. The service maintains a history of all the users' trades and any breaches with the users' trading rules.

The vendor is integrating Linedata Compliance and GIS's applications for accounting and recordkeeping, said Annie Morris, senior v.p. of business development and client services for Linedata in Boston. Clients will no longer need to re-key data into Linedata. "We're building an interface to link the products so data can flow between the two products in real-time," she said. "Organizations that use fund accounting also need compliance monitoring," Morris said. "It simplifies their operations because they only need to load data in once."

Morris noted that Linedata Compliance and the GIS services are separately licensed, but she predicted many clients will choose to use both. "Organizations that use fund accounting also need compliance monitoring," Morris said.

The GIS acquisition allowed Linedata to offer a service that provides compliance oversight in the front- and back-office to clients in North America. As a result, Linedata Compliance will directly compete with the U.K.-based vendor LatentZero's compliance service, Sentinel, said Morris. In the past, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France-headquarted Linedata offered a front-to-back office service to clients in Europe only.