Castine and ONEaccess Offer Enhanced RPA Solution to the Buy Side

RIDGEWOOD, N.J. and NEW YORK, May 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Castine Consulting LLC and ONEaccess, a Visible Alpha company, are pleased to announce their collaboration to provide enhanced RPA (Research Payment Account) solutions to asset managers and hedge funds. Castine has operated in the commission management space for 20 years and is combining its RPA Centre suite of due diligence and commission management modules with ONEaccess' research consumption data, providing buy-side firms with an end-to-end solution for RPAs.  

With greater transparency around commission payments for research, the combined solution offers buy-side firms of all sizes the ability to comply with MiFID II's budgeting requirements, heightened due diligence, trade management and research payments, with a wide variety of research valuation approaches. Currently, many asset managers operate Commission Sharing Agreements (CSAs), and RPAs are designed to enhance the controls around commission spend.

Castine's RPA Centre solution includes a database containing a built-in repository of completed due diligence questionnaires from over 500 research providers allowing buy-side firms to quickly onboard new brokers and research providers, saving significant time and resources.

Castine's compliance group manages the entire process of collecting new questionnaires and updating existing ones. This information, when coupled with Castine's license, renewal, and payment management, works seamlessly with ONEaccess' research consumption data to give an asset manager's broker liaison and research valuation participants a more complete view of their relationships with brokers and third-party research providers.

"The combination of our strengths in tracking and valuing interactions from more than 200 research providers and Castine's flexibility in budgeting and actioning research payments offer our mutual clients another option for implementing their MiFID II strategy," stated Mike Stepanovich, CEO of ONEaccess.

Castine's approach to RPAs, built on their global experience gained over two decades with the entire continuum of commission management, is one of complete flexibility.

• RPA Centre's modularized approach allows buy-side firms to leverage their own valuation systems, ONEaccess' Broker Vote, or Castine's multi-tiered, multi-dimensional valuation system.
• Budgeting is handled simply and seamlessly across strategies and may be reported out at a myriad of different levels as needed.
• Trade reconciliation may be performed by RPA Centre, outsourced to Castine, or to a third-party.

"We're very sensitive to the fact that MiFID II is forcing asset managers to contend with a highly complex set of new requirements that are likely to evolve and mature over the next several years. Therefore, we designed RPA Centre as a highly flexible toolset to ensure our clients will keep pace with MiFID II's evolution," stated Robin Hodgkins, President of Castine, LLC.

A great example of this is research payment management, where RPA Centre allows asset managers to use multiple ring-fenced accounts at different brokers, an outsourced RPA aggregator, P&L, or even sweeping RPA funds from brokers back in-house for the asset manager to manage the payments themselves.

Castine and ONEaccess together offer clients direct control over their RPA practices. Clients can elect to operate on the cloud or host Castine's solution in-house, and the combined solution operates as a single portal for the client.

About ONEaccess

ONEaccess, a Visible Alpha company, is a content and interactions hub that is changing the way the buy side and the sell side collaborate with one another. Founded in 2014, ONEaccess improves the efficiency of discovering, analyzing and valuing events and interactions between professionals on both sides of the market. Our growing suite of intuitive productivity tools fosters trust and transparency in the broker-client relationship and frees up time for generating alpha in the process. For more information on Visible Alpha, please visit www.oneaccess.io. 

About Visible Alpha

Visible Alpha is transforming the way Wall Street firms collaborate on research, financial models and other services. With more than 200 employees globally, the rapidly growing company combines advanced data correction methodologies, a secure distribution network and sophisticated analytical tools on the front end to drive efficiencies and transparency into the research process and help firms generate alpha in new and differentiated ways. Visible Alpha is backed by firms including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley and UBS. For more information on Visible Alpha, please visit www.visiblealpha.com.

About Castine

Originally formed in 1982, Castine Consulting LLC (previously called Cogent Consulting) is the leader in commission management solutions for the buy- and sell-side. Castine's cloud-based products include sales and client performance and compensation systems for institutional and retail brokers, RPA and CSA systems, and a network of over 500 firms providing research, trading, cybersecurity, vendor due diligence for compliance, vendor management, and onboarding purposes.

Media Contacts

Castine
347-422-7846
[email protected]

ONEaccess
Eric Soderberg
Forefront Communications
914-414-2884
[email protected]

SOURCE Castine Consulting LLC