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Envision Financial Systems, Inc.

Envision Financial Systems, Inc. is a privately held software company offering products and services tailored towards the financial services industry. The company’s best-known software product is PowerAgent, a transfer agency system (also known as shareholder accounting) system built on flexible open standards technology for mutual fund companies, mutual fund service providers and college savings plan administrators. The company’s headquarters is in Irvine, California, with client service and operations support based in Owing Mills, Maryland, and Research and Development based in Bangalore, India.

Established in Newport Beach, California in October of 1994 by Satnam Gambhir, Tim Kan and Alan Lewis, the company was formed to create a real-time shareholder accounting system. The decision was made to focus solely on the shareholder accounting product, which later became PowerAgent. Envision has 135 employees worldwide and does not publicly reveal its annual revenue numbers; however, in 2008 Envision made the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Program for Orange County where the minimum qualification is operating revenues of at least $5 million for the year ending 2007.

For reasons varying from its philosophy of adhering to open technology standards for building software to its aggressive marketing campaigns, Envision has established a unique reputation within the transfer agency industry.

History

1988-1994: Origins of Envision

The idea of Envision began in 1991 when Analytic Investment Management (a subsidiary of United Asset Management) decided to launch its first daily accrual mutual funds. At that time Satnam Gambhir, Vice President of Information Systems, was charged with either updating the existing the Analytic shareholder accounting system to accommodate daily accrual funds or creating something new. Gambhir’s review of the market found that the market was dominated by mainframe technology; the only PC-based portfolio management system was deficient to Analytic’s needs. Thus Analytic made the strategic decision to go in a new direction and leverage the emerging technologies at that time: client-server and relational databases. This effort was completed in 1993.

During this time Tim Kan was employed by Stockmate Financial as the chief architect of real-time quotation data feeds used by various broker houses. The two met in 1988 through Analytic’s usage of Stockmate’s product. They began socializing outside their work environments which ultimately lead to discussions of going into business together. With the completion of Gambhir’s efforts at Analytic Investments, along with the purchase of Stockmate Financial by ADP in 1993, they decided the time was right to implement their business plan to and formed Envision Financial Systems. The first office was opened in Newport Beach, California in 1994.

Envision was officially founded in October of 1994 by Gambhir, Kan and investor Alan Lewis. The business was named Envision to capture the discontent its founders held for mainframe based technologies and the future they saw for contemporary technology in the financial services marketplace.

1994-1997: The Early Years

Early on, Envision spent its time visiting mutual fund firms and service providers to get an in-depth understanding of what their needs were. Six months were spent designing PowerAgent at a high level, mapping out required and potential functionality and creating the database design.

A master plan was laid out on the direction Envision was to take for this new shareholder accounting system. Although the system lacked certain features they were built into the high level architecture of the system design and Gambhir and Kan decided to add no-load capabilities to the product and take it to market.

Five years after the beginning the programming of the product, two years after the formation of the company, and after rigorous testing, in December of 1996 the product was ready for general release under its new brand name of PowerAgent.

Envision began conducting demonstrations of PowerAgent in February of 1997. Johnson Investment Council became the first Envision and PowerAgent client a short time later. Johnson had been outsourcing transfer agency services to an outfit that exited the market and was close to moving to another outsourcing solution when they became aware of Envision. While conducting routine reference checks the outsource solution they were moving towards, one reference was from NationsBank who had been working closely with Envision and suggested Johnson take a closer look at PowerAgent.

Johnson eventually selected PowerAgent due to the intuitive user interface, sound system design and the use of a relational database which provided greater flexibility. In March 1997, Johnson signed on as the first official client of Envision’s to use PowerAgent. One month later the conversion process was completed.

1997-2002: Growth

In May of 1997, Envision exhibited at the Investment Company Institute’s conference in Washington, DC where their company and PowerAgent product was unveiled to the public. Three new clients signed up by the end of 1997: Unified Funds, Gateway Funds and Accessor Funds.

The first load client was Pacific Global Funds. Previously on PFPC’s SURPASS system, they were looking to bring the TA function in house. Envision added front load capabilities working with Pacific Global’s team by processing all trades on their current TA system, sending Envision the output, sending the same trades on PowerAgent and matching the results to ensure accuracy.

A pattern was emerging which would dictate Envision’s future growth. Rather than build new features first, then look for clients, Envision took the approach of building new features tailored to clients and their real-world challenges. The ability to do so was a direct result of the inherent flexibility of the open standards technology. Another example of this was adding NSCC functionality, which was previously planed for another prospect, Star Bank (eventually bought out by Firstar).

Contingent Deferred Sales Charge (CDSC) functionality was added for another new client: Declaration Group. Asset allocation and money movement process was added when Gemini Funds came on board. With Rydex Funds, multi-cycle pricing was added while scalability of the system was enhanced.

In 2001, Envision expanded operations to Tustin, California.

2002-Present: Expansion

In 2002 Envision opened a research and development center in the city of Bangalore, India. 2002 also saw the opening of a client service and support division in Owings Mills, Maryland.

The period from 2002 on saw continued expansion as larger fund companies began to express interest. Investors Bank and Trust, acquired by State Street Corporation in 2007, was looking for alternatives to their existing mainframe system. Due to their clients’ specialized needs, the mainframe systems were not a good match. Investors Bank and Trust felt Envision provided a foundation which could be customized to their needs. PowerAgent continues to support this business post State Street acquisition of Investors Bank and Trust.

Union Bank and Trust liked the PowerAgent interface and user-friendliness. Envision persuaded them their team could add the necessary functionality to PowerAgent to support 529 plans. This eventually led to the new product PowerAgent529 and the signing of Envision’s largest client to date: OppenheimerFunds.

Envision was awarded First Place for Innovations in the prestigious 2004 SourceMedia Fund Operations Award, and again in 2005. Since 2004, Envision has made the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award every year. And since 2005, Envision has made the Software 500, a list of the top 500 software companies in the world.

Partnerships were also struck with companies including HP, IBM, Microsoft, Unisys, Sybase, Nuance, Choicepoint, FSSI, Celera Systems, Integrated Systems Corporation, EMC, Chesapeake System Solutions and Stradley Ronon.

Envision is a CMMI level 4 certified company. Envision is the only transfer agency system provider to attain this designation. The process for Envision to become CMMi Level 4 certified began in 2004 and was completed by the end of 2005.

In 2006, Envision expanded to their current location in Irvine, California. New products were also released, including an image and workflow system (PAFlow),, shareholder and financial intermediary trading and account inquiry internet portal (PAWeb), Application Programming Interfaces for integrating PowerAgent with business applications (PATools), real-time cash availability dashboard (PACash) and Clarity Compliance an automated Rule 22(c)-2 data collection and trade analysis system.

Current Products

PowerAgent is a full featured, real-time, multi-currency transfer agency shareholder accounting system for servicing the buying and selling of shares and administering their ownership. PowerAgent facilitates the recordkeeping, trading, servicing, and ongoing management of shareholder accounts. PowerAgent is used by investment companies, college savings plan administrators and investment company service providers. PowerAgent provides core features needed to support load funds, National Securities Clearing Corporation, tax reporting, and menu driven roles-based compliance modules. As of 2008, 28 fund companies were using PowerAgent for a total of 5.75 million shareholder accounts.

PAWorx is an integrated imaging & workflow system designed to create a paperless and automated operating environment. PAWorx is fully integrated with PowerAgent.

PAWeb is a turn-key web interface that enables shareholders and financial intermediaries real-time access to account information and trading capabilities.

PATools is a selection of APIs allowing external development to facilitate real-time inquiries and transaction processing from any surround system.

PACash provides projected real-time cash flows for Portfolio Managers, including actual and pending trade activity.

Clarity Compliance is a web-based SEC 22c-2 solution that helps firms monitor and resolve fund policy violations on house and omnibus accounts to ensure compliance with mutual funds stated trading policies.

Cash Reconciliation automates the management of the money movement calculations and reconciliation process to minimize the time and cost spent on the daily cash reconciliation process. This product is offered in partnership with Chesapeake Systems Solutions.

Sales and Performance Reporting aggregates trading and asset data from a myriad of sources such as transfer agents and wire houses to help firms better understand their customers and manage their sales and marketing activities. This product is offered in partnership with Celera Systems.

Key Personnel

Satnam S. Gambhir, CEO & Co-founder Timothy Kan, President & Co-founder Thomas J. Wiedecker, Chief Client Officer Brian Jones, EVP Prithvi Hariharan, Chief Technology Officer Harpreet Kwatra, Chief Knowledge Officer Manmohan Jaiswal, Managing Director for Research and Development

References 

Further reading

Pallay, Jessica. “Getting Your Fair Share – Shareholder Accounting”. Wall Street and Technology, August 2003.

External links

-Envision Financial Systems, Inc. -SourceMedia 2008 Mutual Fund Service Guide ranking of top transfer agency providers -Envision Financial Systems, Inc. company profile on BusinessWeek

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Envision Financial Systems, Inc.