Odyssey Financial Technologies

Odyssey is founded in Luxembourg by 9 private shareholders.

Odyssey was founded in Luxembourg on the 2nd August 1995 by nine private shareholders. Building on ten years of experience in banking software, Antoine Duchateau led the group in the setting-up of the company.
Antoine was the Operations / Deputy Managing Director at BIS Banking Systems when he realised the potential of an unfilled niche in the investment management market.
The formative years of any company are a source of legendary myths surrounding the successful origins. Odyssey is no exception to the rule and adventurous stories of the founders' many late nights laying the groundwork for future market leadership still infuse the current spirit and culture of the company.

Odyssey acquires exclusive distribution rights of the Triple'A portfolio management system, originally developed at the initiative of Banque Cantonale Vaudoise (BCV) in Lausanne.

Odyssey acquired the exclusive distribution rights of the Triple’A portfolio management system, developed by Unicible, which brought the company its first contracts.
Triple'A had been created by Unicible for the Banque Cantonale Vaudoise (BCV) and other Swiss Cantonal Banks that were looking for a superior portfolio management system. Acting on the banks' specifications, Unicible, with its strategic market position, developed a functionally rich, high-performance system that completely satisfied the requirements of a front-office wealth management system.
Odyssey achieved two notable successes this year. It acquired the Belgian company CAFC, which had already been working on portfolio management systems for the investment management community in Luxembourg, Belgium, France and Switzerland. It also acquired the Mirage reporting system for private banking and the development team behind it.

Development of Mirage reporting and offices established in Geneva and Zurich.

In 1997 Odyssey gradually expanded. Two sales offices were opened in Switzerland and a number of new clients signed agreements.
Odyssey, now a 50-strong company, took a defining decision that would have major implications on its future growth. In a series of workshops, management and Odyssey’s own industry experts met to discuss how best to tackle the challenges of the future. One conclusion was that to meet customer requirements for new features quickly, full control over Triple'A was necessary and it was decided to acquire the intellectual property rights of the software.

Acquisition of the intellectual property rights of Triple'A and transfer of the development team to Lausanne

Odyssey finally acquired the intellectual property rights for Triple’A in 1998. This change of business culture entailed important consequences for the company, the most important being the transfer of the Triple'A development team to Odyssey. From then on, the core of Odyssey’s Research & Development would be located in the capital of the Canton of Vaud.

Odyssey launches development of Advisor - client relationship management solution for the Investment Management Community

Odyssey embarked on a new business challenge. Signs within the investment management sector, leading experts’ opinions and Odyssey’s own business analysts were hinting at a new business requirement in the industry: the need for a business-generating front-office application that allows relationship managers to focus on creating revenue and improving client service, rather than processing automatable investment orders.
Odyssey’s answer to this business trend was Advisor. Development on the first client relationship management tool for Wealth Management was started. Meanwhile Odyssey’s portfolio management business was going strong with various new names from across continental Europe joining the list of Odyssey clients.

Acquisition of the London based company "Market Data Systems", specialised in accessing, filtering, warehousing and distributing market data; office in London established.

With Odyssey’s foothold in Europe growing stronger, Odyssey started looking outside its original boundaries. The first step in this new expansion was the acquisition of London-based Market Data Systems. The take-over provided Odyssey with a London office dedicated to the UK market. More importantly, it extended Odyssey’s breadth of business applications into the previously untapped area of market data. Accessing, filtering, warehousing, and distributing market data now became the natural complement to Odyssey’s expertise.

Office opened in Singapore; the three companies within Odyssey Group (OAMS, ODAFS, OMDS) are merged as Odyssey Asset Management Systems.

Not content with European expansion, Odyssey opened its first Asian office in 2001. The increasing expansion of banks’ wealth management divisions into the Far East encouraged Odyssey to inaugurate its first non-European office in Singapore, Asia’s premier centre for investment management. Odyssey clients setting up a business presence in Asia could now be served by local staff without the problems of time differences and lengthy and costly travel. Today the Singapore office is still Odyssey’s largest overseas presence.
In the background, Odyssey concluded merging its various business units accumulated during the past into one legal, operational entity. Acquisitions of companies in the UK and Luxembourg had resulted in the creation of the subsidiaries OMDS and ODAFS. These were finally formally merged into today’s leader in investment management solutions, Odyssey Asset Management Systems.

Launch of Triple'A Release 4 and development of Nexus - data warehousing solution.

2002 marked the lowest ebb in recent history for investment management markets worldwide. Despite such a difficult year, Odyssey continued making strides by increasing its Tier 1 clients. The largest banking corporation in the UK was just one of the institutions that empowered their front-office with Odyssey’s leading edge solutions.
2002 was also a record year in terms of Odyssey’s R&D investment, representing a significant percentage of its turnover. An investment that showed results in the issuing of Odyssey’s most advanced portfolio management release to date: Triple’A Release 4. Additionally, clients were preparing for the imminent commercial launch of the client relationship management system, Advisor, and the release of Nexus, the complete data warehousing solution.

Commercial release of Advisor - client relationship management solution; office in Munich established.

2003 saw the commercial release of Advisor. This was a groundbreaking development for the investment management industry that had simply not known front-office tools with the ergonomic simplicity of a web user interface.
The launch struck a chord with new as well as existing clients. It revolutionised the Private Banking community, technologically restricted to saving its most exclusive services for those with the necessary threshold wealth. Seizing upon the opportunities created by Advisor’s wealth management automation features, banks realised they could open their exclusive wealth management services to new segments of the population, thereby creating an entirely new flow of revenue from the mass affluent.
The first banks to implement Advisor were German. Historically, Germany has had a large volume of mass affluent customers, persistently looking for specialised wealth advice that was now available through Odyssey's solutions. As a result of this business trend and the subsequent success of Odyssey solutions in Germany, the first office was opened in Munich. It was to be the first of several.

Signing of first major client in North America. Establishment of new York office. Launch of Odyssey Component Suite.

Since Odyssey’s early years, the company had been eyeing what is still the world’s largest single private wealth region, North America. Unlike Odyssey’s previous intercontinental expansion into Asia, there were few existing clients with a significant penetration of the US market.
Extensive research into, and preparation of, alternative market entry strategies resulted in more than just a plan to penetrate the US market. Odyssey realised the far-reaching potential of unifying its products into packaged solutions, customised to satisfy the requirements of front-office staff. A plan to componentise Odyssey's solutions was put in place and the building blocks for Odyssey’s Portfolio and Relationship Manager Workstations were prepared.
Odyssey signed contracts with two new North American clients. The implementation of Odyssey solutions at these new client sites as well as landmark agreements with the first United Arab Emirates and Malaysian clients gave the company leader status, proving that the best front-office tools are not limited to regional application.
In December, 2004, Odyssey established its New York office to service clients on the American continent.

Acquisition of Reuters RPMS. Signing of the first client in Russia. Establishment of the Tokyo branch office.

2005 saw changes in the investment management solutions industry, and Odyssey played a leading role. Like any industry with a national and international plethora of providers, the financial software industry started consolidating. Odyssey, as a European leader, acquired Reuters’ RPMS portfolio management business, becoming the indisputable top player in Germany and strengthening its position and expertise worldwide.
Odyssey’s international expansion continued in 2005. The company set up its first office in Asia’s biggest wealth management market, Japan. Then Odyssey signed its first Russian customer. Russia has historically been deprived of wealth management services for political reasons, but domestic players have been very quick to pick up on the gap and develop an investment management sector that boasts one of the highest growth rates in the world.
And, of course, it was time to celebrate: Happy 10th Anniversary, Odyssey.

Licence sales increase by 42%. Apax joins Odyssey capital. New sales division created for Eastern Europe. Launch of new corporate image and company name change to Odyssey Financial Technologies.

2006 saw the entry of an additional 12 major Private Banking and Wealth Management organisations into the Odyssey user community globally.

In the US, three new customers include a major wealth management organisation which signed for Odyssey's Portfolio and Relationship Manager Workstations, a specialised fixed income organisation which has licenced Odyssey’s Enterprise Data Management solution and a very large mutual fund organisation. Since the New York office was established in 2004, Odyssey has built a fully regional team of 16 people, which will now be considerably expanded.

Odyssey also won major new clients in Asia with both the number one foreign bank in Japan and one of the top 10 domestic Japanese banks taking Odyssey’s wealth management solutions. A third signing of a major bank providing wealth management in Singapore joined Siam Commercial Bank in Thailand which had earlier in the year selected Odyssey’s Portfolio Manager Workstation solution for its Private Banking business, in a rapidly growing regional customer base.

In Europe amongst the key new signings was the ARZ Allgemeines Rechenzentrum GmbH, an Austrian IT service provider, which has decided to move from its Reuters Portfolio Management System to the Odyssey Component Suite, and Lloyds TSB in the UK which has chosen Odyssey solution as its private banking front office platform.

All together these new contract signings, in addition to a considerable amount of new business from our existing customers, meant that license sales grew during the year by 42% on the 2005 result. Odyssey’s annual revenues showed a growth of 19% to reach approximately €62 million, and met the Company’s budgeted profit target. In parallel, the company invested significantly in 2006 through recruitment, reaching globally 387 employees in December 2006. The development team has been extended significantly to accelerate development of new features and ensure high quality deliverables.
2006 has been an excellent financial year for Odyssey, and our focus needs now to shift towards achieving challenging 2007 objectives, both financial and operational, and throughout the regions as well as centrally. The success during 2006 confirms Odyssey as the leading global vendor of technology solutions, best of breed and integrated, meeting the business requirements of multiple profiles within a wealth management organization.

Odyssey reinforces its Asset & Wealth Management solutions by respectively acquiring CAfIT in April and signing an agreement to purchase Xeye in December.

2007 was a year of global growth for Odyssey. With new products launched and new partnerships concluded, further developments with our existing clients and new customers selecting our solutions, we increased staff by 33% and welcomed one new acquisition while progressing on another which was finally achieved in January 2008. 

The Knowledge Academy was established. The Certification programme managed by the Academy qualifies Odyssey and external consultants, as well as our clients’ personnel, in the use of our products: installation, configuration, integration, reporting, customisation, fine-tuning and best practices are taught in one and two-week courses and special one-day courses.

In May, Odyssey acquired CAfIT, a British company that produces the CAfIT Asset Management Suite, subsequently renamed InvestmentManager™. With a high-performance portfolio management suite for the funds and institutional management segment and a prestigious Tier 1 client base in the United Kingdom, CAfIT made the perfect addition to our organization and product offering.

Within this new customer population, we achieved sales in a number of new locations for the Company including Oslo, Sydney and Posnan. This reflected our continued drive into new geographies as evidenced by our Asia Pacific, Northern Europe and Eastern Europe operational regions achieving strong sales growth and by another solid sales performance from our Americas region.