Background: I am analyst for a bank. My role is somewhere between number cruncher and quant. On some days, I'm just running calculations; on other days, I'm in the deep end of the mathematical finance pool. I have a degree in financial engineering, and I dedicated to the field of risk management.<p>I have identified a piece of software, used by many in a role similar to mine, that is simply insufficient for the regulatory environment the banking industry is moving towards. The GUI is slow. Documentation for anything beyond rudimentary functionality is practically nonexistent. What documentation that does exist sometimes contains significant errors. At times the system will simply return nonsense. At other times the system may not even finish, crapping out hours into a run.<p>I remember Paul writing about approaching banking from a tangent. This is that tangent. Not only is the software used for interest rate risk purposes (what I do), it's also used for liquidity modeling, credit modeling, and capital modeling.<p>I'm fairly comfortable with C++. Are there any people on HN looking to start a financial risk management software company? Are there any people with a background in credit modeling, interest rate modeling, etc. that would like to be a cofounder? I am 100% confident that this space could use a new company. Feel free to contact me. My email address should be visible.
Around the turn of the millenium I was a lead developer on a finance platform that spanned order management, trade capture, and portfolio analytics, primarily for MBS. [1]<p>It is a sisyphysian task to sell software like this into a bank. Let me recommend the following: run screaming as far and fast as you can.<p>The main reasons:<p>- "Nobody ever got fired for buying [the existing standard]."<p>- "If your software fails we have no entity of any value to sue."<p>- There is a large existing power structure at financial firms aligned behind existing solutions. Folks who have made it their job to understand the [often crappy] systems and to maintain them. These people do not want to lose their niche.<p>- Verifying the correctness of your solution is extremely hard and the standard of verification required is very high.<p>Folks that are winning in this space, like Sungard and Imagine, have largely become services businesses. IMO that's the only viable way to play in this space.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.beyondbond.com/index.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.beyondbond.com/index.php</a>
I have worked for banks for past 9 years. I agree that most of the software are old, outdated and just plain fucked up. I have done so many projects where we band-aid existing legacy systems even thought the project is called "Strategic decommissioning of legacy platform blah blah..". Point being that these guys are extremely difficult to penetrate into and they do not like change. I think opportunities are boundless to create good products and sell to these banks. But will need to go through lot of red tapes. Not to mention the new Dodd Frank stuff. Everyone is scared as to what that is bringing and the first question they will ask you is "Is this in compliance with Dodd Frank regulations" specifically if related to credit, risk etc.
give me a shoutout though in case you want some more ideas. Always happy to talk.