SuperD takes first place in options pricing category

It took the top spot on the podium ahead of GFI Group's Fenics and products from Murex, Reuters and Misys Summit. David Gershon, chief executive of SuperDerivatives in New York, said that the past year has seen a growing sophistication among clients that has led to a significant upgrade of its products.

The company has been building out its capabilities to offer support for an expanded class of options and structured products over the past 12 months. For example, now the options pricing product SD-FX and risk management platform SD-RM support products such as accumulators and resettable forwards.

"For those corporates that don't want to jump too fast from forwards to options, we have provided them with an easy migration-path in the form of structures that are in between. Those 'forward structures' can legitimately be portrayed internally as forwards, even if they include options," said Gershon.

To support the increasingly savvy buy side clientele, SuperDerivatives has added tools to create strategies and to risk manage their positions. For example, the tools enable the buy side to check the effectiveness of their hedges versus cash flows.

Gershon said that the company is continually looking to meet the needs of the developing market. Currently the firm is working on some 250 new features requested by clients both in terms of supporting a larger range of options, as well as functionality.

"For example, one of the new components we are working on is a standard FpML-based adapter that will allow for easy STP integration of SD-FX with other bank treasury systems," said Gershon.