Diawa SB Investments Ltd., an asset manager with more than USD $31 billion in assets under management, has selected the Charles River Investment Management System to replace an order management system and several other tools from various existing local vendors. The tools from the Charles River IMS that Daiwa is implementing include portfolio management and modeling, order management and electronic trading, real-time compliance monitoring, and centralized management of trade matching, confirmation and settlement workflow.

Suichi Komori, president and CEO of Daiwa, said the Charles River IMS was chosen in part because its breadth of products gave the firm the opportunity to consolidate on one platform.

“We found Charles River IMS is the most compatible fit and ideal system to automate our global and Japanese investment operations,” Komori said.

A Charles River spokeswoman also noted that interest from the Japanese market has grown since the company included Japanese characters in the product. “There was definitely an increase in interest with the inclusion of Japanese characters,” she said. In addition, Charles River has boosted its presence in Asia Pacific, which has encouraged potential customers in the area who would be more comfortable with easier access to support staff, she said.

The latter move was one that Daiwa cited as a positive factor in its decision to select the Charles River IMS.

“We also have direct access to support from Charles River’s Melbourne, Singapore in addition to Tokyo staff and once the implementation is complete, we will have one integrated system that fully streamlines our investment operations workflow,” Komori said.

Komori also noted that the real-time compliance features of Charles River Compliance weighed into the firm’s decision.

“We were particularly impressed with Charles River Compliance, which enables us to apply compliance rules precisely for each fund. We can, therefore, more easily adhere to the broker trading restrictions unique to Japan,” Komori said. “The system covers all investment classes, not only equities or fixed income, and this means that all compliance can now be executed in one front-office system.”