Client - UBS
Role - Product Designer (sole designer)
Project - Financial Analysis Portal
Challenge
Research Analysts have a tough job. They have to analyze financial, research papers, transcript and news in order to provide the best recommendations to portfolio managers. Combination of fee pressures, lack of product innovation and information overload has made current research model unsustainable.
Solution
A centralized research portal where research analysts can receive timely and relevant information while leveraging AI and Machine Learning technology. The product is broken down into two parts, a dashboard and a smart search. The dashboard shows key health indicators at a company level. The real value this product offers is the aggregation of various sources of information and providing real-time qualitative analysis.
This can have great impact to our users because it can speed up the investment decisions by increasing the collaboration between Portfolio Managers and Analysts.
What does a fixed income research analysts do?
Fixed income Research Analysts provide Decision Support to PMs and aide in achieving the goals of the product strategy by providing recommendations i.e. identifying opportunities & ideas to buy, sell, hold, hedge or stay out of the particular security (issue)]
Through analysis of interest rate risks, credit risks, price behavior, specific event-driven activities;
Using multiple techniques like Fundamental / Technical Analysis, Relative Value Approach, Quantitative Analytics;
Backed by a deep study of the issuer, industry sectors, countries, regions and currencies;
By following the market for key developments, micro/macro trends, credit impacting or mkt-moving news & events.
Leveraging multiple technology tools like Bloomberg, Code Red, Chat/eMails, Credit Monitor, YODA
In other words, they act as "filters" enabling Portfolio Managers to take an informed decision and conclude on an Investment opportunity faster - allows PMs to focus more on Portfolio Construction & Implementation of the Strategy
Current process
The process of a financial analyst is quite complicated. Not only do they have to comb through tons of data, they also on calls and meetings with other analysts and managers. On a weekly basis, analysts can create up to 1-2 detailed reports and 4-5 brief reports.
Proposed User Journey
Provide timely and and relevant information leveraging ML capibilities.
UI and Interactions
Shipped Designs
My Dashboard
From their dashboard, the Researcher can track their Issuers’ performance in the market as well as overall sentiment scores from the News and company transcripts.
Held Position
Researchers can dive deep into their Issuer’s Strategies and Portfolio.
Research
Researchers will find any related research articles published by financial or research institutions related to the Issuer of interest.
Transcript
Sentiment scores can also be tracked from board meetings as well. Insights from these transcripts can also help researchers determine the health of a company and predict it’s success.
News
Using sentiment a score engine and Machine Learning. Researchers can gauge the sentiment of a news article as well as key topics covered in the article to predict a positive or negative PR of a company.
Smart Search
Smart Search allows researchers to search by any phrase that includes a topic, company, event, etc. Using AI and Machine learning, smart search will display research articles, Transcripts or News articles that with have these words associated to them or relative words. The relative words are defined by AI and can be accessed via Augmented words word cloud for reference.
Project’s Outcome
Design wise, this project was setting the highest bar for an enterprise application at UBS. The team started out not interested in user feedback to planning user feedback sessions. Unfortunately, COVID placed the user testing as well as the project on pause.