With these powerful new offerings, Imagine provides a cloud-based environment enabling financial institutions, service providers, consultants, and other third parties to use, create, and distribute applications—Imagine Apps—that leverage, customize, and extend the Imagine Trading System in an almost limitless manner.

Building on its reputation for innovation, Imagine offers the financial industry the first opportunity to build a community around a standard platform that draws upon a widely used business application. The Imagine Financial Platform leverages the full set of capabilities native to Imagine including its robust analytics and rich data universe to allow for the creation of apps that fulfill mission-critical business needs in areas such as regulatory requirements, compliance, portfolio performance and monitoring, workflow automation, and reporting. Apps developed using IFP can be as simple as a pricing calculator or as complex as a comprehensive margining system and can be implemented in days rather than months.

"By opening our portfolio and risk management system in this way, we are enabling a broad audience of users and developers to access the powerful analytics and data of an industrial strength solution," said Steven Harrison, President and COO of Imagine Software. "Financial institutions now have the freedom to build customized capabilities themselves, access a Marketplace filled with ready-to-use apps developed by Imagine and third parties, or work in coordination with IFP partners to develop apps specifically suited to their business needs."
The development of IFP draws on Imagine's 20-year track record of success in delivering advanced risk and portfolio management solutions to a worldwide user community of thousands of risk, trading, operations, and IT professionals at hundreds of firms.

Early response to IFP has been unanimously enthusiastic industry-wide, with broad-based recognition of the immediate business benefits.

Jonathan Barton, COO of Meru Capital, said, "As a long-standing Imagine client, we are excited about Imagine's new IFP capability. In particular, by using an Imagine App, we can now more easily run a series of Monte Carlo-based analyses that capture non-linear sensitivities. This significantly advances the way in which we can drill into the risks in our cross-asset class portfolio."

Elaine Davis, COO of Nine Masts, commented, "When we were first introduced to IFP, we were excited about its potential for developing apps that are critical to our business. With this new platform we can quickly achieve capabilities that are specific to our firm, such as the trade turnover app that we have added to our risk model. Additionally, we are using the Hong Kong short position app which greatly streamlines our reporting process. We look forward to increased efficiencies in our operations through other Imagine Apps."

In support of the creation, delivery, and use of Imagine Apps, the award-winning company has also introduced the Imagine Marketplace. This vehicle provides a single destination for accessing and distributing apps that have been built with IFP. This new cloud-based ecosystem will allow third parties to deliver apps to the global financial community while users will benefit from a site that features ready-to-use apps and available partners for bespoke app development.

"When we first introduced IFP to our clients, we were pleased to hear people draw the analogy of 'apps' available for their personal phones and other devices to Imagine Apps," said Harrison. "The concept of an Imagine Marketplace was immediately recognized as the new way to bring more depth and breadth of functionality to the financial and business world in the same fashion that has been so widely adopted in other markets."

Imagine partner Sindex Financial Systems sees IFP and the app Marketplace as providing a new vehicle to broaden their service offering to clients. Mike Berger, CEO of Sindex, said, "The Imagine Marketplace will allow us to reach a broader audience. The app store model has gained widespread acceptance in social media and CRM, and its application to portfolio and risk management presents a unique opportunity. We expect it will quickly increase our visibility to a desirable client segment by enabling us to showcase our custom solutions capability in an exclusive market forum."

"Imagine's reputation has been built on delivering real innovation, beginning with the 1993 introduction of integrated portfolio and risk management applications for the largest institutional banks," said Harrison. "In 2000, we pioneered the world's first cloud-based portfolio and risk management solution, enjoying wide industry acclaim and recognition. Now, in 2012, we continue that proud tradition with the introduction of IFP and the Imagine Marketplace. We look forward to working with our clients, partners, and third parties to build a vibrant community that will contribute to a new era of innovation in financial markets."