Decades of experience servicing asset managers and asset owners gives us a front-row seat to the challenges and pressures facing the industry.
Our clients continuously grapple with volatile markets, product rationalization and shifting investor requirements, as well as new financial regulations, shrinking margins and the rapid pace of technology transformation. They also want continuous coverage and operational resiliency that will protect them in times of uncertainty. And, with their business models under constant stress, the need for access to innovation is critical.
Collaborating with our clients, we went to work on an innovation of our own, creating a platform that extends beyond our traditional back- and middle-office solutions. We call it State Street AlphaSM, our fully connected, end-to-end investment servicing platform designed to help clients improve efficiency, launch new products, enter new markets and scale their business. State Street Alpha seamlessly integrates the services and data clients need, across all aspects of the investment life cycle.
We acquired a critical piece of our platform strategy in 2018 with our purchase of Charles River Development (CRD) and its flagship front-office Investment Management Solution (CRIMS). By adding a front-office system that helps global investment firms manage US$28 trillion in assets, we are now poised to offer the world’s first fully open and integrated front-to-back investment servicing platform from a single provider.
State Street Alpha helps manage the entire investment process, automating workflows and streamlining operations. Client data is consolidated and presented in a single view, giving asset managers quick and deeper insights into portfolio construction, including a more accurate and timely view of their cash positions and fund flows. Because it employs an open architecture, State Street Alpha is compatible with other third-party provider solutions and software, allowing clients to create the system that works best for them. Our goal is to encourage client innovation and choice, not hinder it.
Clients have a clear interest in our front-to-back vision. We signed four clients to our State Street Alpha platform in 2019 and at year-end we were in active discussions with more than 100 new and existing clients. Many of these clients want to explore opportunities with our front-office capabilities. Others want to strengthen their partnerships with us and rethink their investment workflows from end to end.
State Street Alpha is yet another example of how partnership and collaboration power innovation and success, for both State Street and our clients. It continues our long-held tradition of achieving industry firsts, and it is creating a new symbiotic relationship between our company, our clients and the many investment providers who power innovation in financial services. Thanks to several new capabilities introduced in 2019, we’ve equipped traders with tools that can help them better navigate periods of market volatility. The integration of our award-winning foreign exchange (FX) trading solutions with our investment management servicing solution gives traders more flexibility and control over how they execute partial trades when employing algorithms. This functionality allows traders to easily halt their activity based on market news, with an eye toward improving trade performance and execution quality.
State Street Alpha is also shifting the way we are talking with our clients, as more executives seek to implement firm-wide strategies needed to succeed in tough business environments. Amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, our operational resiliency has been a reassuring benefit for our clients, as we experienced minimal disruptions during unprecedented global closures and reconfigurations.
With State Street Alpha, we are driving choice and efficiency across investment workflows, providing capabilities to help clients implement their strategies, scalability to help grow their business, and resiliency to help them navigate challenging market environments. We are changing not only the way our clients work, but how we work together.