About the Customer
Phinom AG is a Swiss-based company funded by a private investor. It provides trading technology services to private banks and high net worth individuals. The Phinom platform brings the latest advances of trading technology and addresses the specific needs of private banks and traders that still have underdeveloped solutions and rely mostly on traditional trading by phone.
Business Challenge
The customer sought ways to increase return on their capital investments and bring more automation to their daily routine, as they sold options to banks via telephone and kept accounts of all operations, investments, and capitals in Excel spreadsheets. Managing capital in such an old-fashioned way limits the potential profits and quickly gets out of hand as the number of client positions grows, impeding the potential and profits for both customer and bank. The customer needed trading software where he could also manually enter positions created at third-party trading venues outside of the Phinom system. The solution also needed to be available on all platforms and appropriate for any age group, so Devexperts designed the user experience and “the visual language” of the platform from scratch for easy comprehension and usability.
Solution
A Devexperts product, DXOMS, was heavily extended and provided the backend to Phinom. To send orders and list the whole portfolio, Devexperts implemented API integration with several trading venues (i.e. Bank Julius Baer, DigitalVega). FX Spot, Forwards, and Stocks trading capabilities were implemented, replacing outdated Excel spreadsheets. Then mobile versions for iPad and iPhone were created, enabling the user to trade on-the-go. The iPad version of Phinom has a rich set of functions, including:
- Real-time synchronization of mobile, Web and desktop versions via DXOMS
- OTC FX Spot, Forward, Vanilla and Exotic options trading
- Highly configurable portfolio views with sorting, filters and highlighting (including context highlights, signals, and alerts) functionality
- Option portfolio risk analysis with market simulations
- Sophisticated reporting tools
- Full-featured charting with technical analysis and a rich set of tools
- Real-time alerts
The iPhone application provides simplified views for current market status, different portfolio views and trading notifications allowing the customers to be in control of their accounts anywhere, anytime.
In the course of working with the customer, the business evolved and shaped new demands, leading to an enhancement of the solution. Devexperts continued development at the Customer’s request and added features tailored to fulfill the customer’s business needs:
- RFQ trading with automated negotiation of flex options pricing with trading venues
- Pythagoras: advanced position alerts for stop loss and take profit notifications
- BiograPHI: user-defined trading strategies from a simple rolling chain of options to complex hedging aggregates that the trader sees as a solid investment strategy, maintained, tracked and measured to achieve the best overall ROI
- Margin simulation: custom pluggable margin calculation algorithms for various asset classes and margin calculation techniques of different banks and regulators.
Phinom can create risk profiles based on volatility feeds obtained from trading venues to build strategies. Its extended reporting reflects the platform’s approach to trading. All Phinom client applications also have server-stored presets for filtering and sorting rules with real-time synchronization on all platforms, allowing for effective collaboration between investors, money managers and banks on portfolio slicing and investment strategies analysis via shared widgets and view presets.
Result
The initial task of creating a manual position management service with a function to send orders to banks was only a foundation for the ambitious development project, which resulted in the cross-platform custom trading solution Phinom with no peers among off-the-shelf products. It combines the functionality of numerous solutions, making it a one-of-a-kind software product:
- The multi-asset trading platform with a special focus on foreign exchange derivatives
- The robust product for money managers and private banks to trade OTC FX Spot, Forward, Vanilla and Exotic options, track their portfolios, risk exposures, and balances
- The solution with comprehensive UI/UX available on Web, mobile, and desktop platforms
Awards
Phinom was named the Gold winner in the Digital – FinTech category at the 2018 Berlin Design Awards, held by DRIVENxDESIGN, a global community of designers.