PMG Investment Solutions AG

Before implementing etops Asset Manager Pro, a partnership that began back in 2020, PMG faced a challenge familiar to many growing asset managers.

A team member updates portfolio positions in an Excel file. Another colleague opens the same file an hour later. Which version is current? Who made the last change? What exactly was modified?

There was no way to know.

“The biggest problem with the old setup was working in a team with a four-eyes principle, ensuring it remained error-free and that the other person could trace what was done,” explains Marjan Ristov, Co-Head Portfolio Management at PMG Investment Solutions AG. For a firm managing CHF 4 billion across Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Cayman Islands, and Malta, this wasn’t just inconvenient, it was institutional risk. Banks, pension funds, family offices, and UHNWIs require certainty, not guesswork.

Yet at the time PMG’s operations ran on SharePoint-stored Excel files. “Based on these Excel sheets, the portfolios were managed,” Marjan recalls. 36 accounts, multiple portfolios, trades executing across time zones, and somewhere in those spreadsheets lived the current state of every client position, if you could find it.

The four-eyes principle that should have caught errors instead created them, because the second pair of eyes couldn’t see what the first pair had done.

Manual reconciliation consumed hours. Excel couldn’t provide real-time transparency. SharePoint couldn’t create audit trails. For a 50-person team delivering institutional services across multiple jurisdictions with distinct regulatory requirements, the operational constraint was clear: they couldn’t scale without fundamental change.

PMG evaluated multiple providers, but the question evolved beyond features. It wasn’t just about handling current operations, it was about scaling future ones. And critically, it was about finding a platform that would continue improving over time.

“In Etops, we found a reliable partner who develops solutions for asset and portfolio management that we can refine dynamically,” Marjan notes.

The evaluation revealed what PMG needed: a platform that could handle multi-jurisdictional complexity, each with distinct compliance frameworks. Swiss regulatory requirements alone demanded specific configurations. Add Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Cayman Islands, and Malta, each bringing their own rules, and the platform would need genuine flexibility.

But flexibility without partnership is just configuration options. What set Etops apart was the collaborative approach. And importantly, PMG saw a partner invested in making the product better for all clients, not just delivering a fixed solution.

The platform wouldn’t just solve current challenges, it would evolve as new ones emerged.

From day one: Systematic operations.

etops Asset Manager Pro runs continuously throughout the trading day, handling all 36 accounts with complete transparency. The morning routine became consistent: verify overnight processing, confirm Bloomberg data feeds, review compliance status. All before the 8:30 AM team call.

“The first thing you do each morning is verify that overnight processing worked and the data is current,” Marjan explains. “For our clients, it’s crucial that portfolios are accurately represented before markets open.”

All-day visibility: One platform, complete control.

“etops Asset Manager Pro is open all day, so it’s the main tool,” Marjan says.

The Order Management provides real-time execution monitoring. “You can see which trades are running, execution percentages, and where you need to monitor if something’s moving too fast or too slow,” Marjan explains.

The Compliance Engine operates across three layers: pre-trade, post-trade, and post-booking. “It’s really error-free,” Marjan notes. “I’d say it’s rock-solid.”

Reconciliation runs continuously across all 36 accounts. “Without a professional solution like this, it’s difficult to keep track of everything and ensure everyone is aligned,” Marjan observes.

The four-eyes principle finally works.

“etops Asset Manager Pro offers dynamic inventory management, we can trade during the day and it’s always traceable: what was done, when, and by whom,” Marjan explains. One team member executes a trade. Another sees it immediately. Both can verify it. The dual control principle that should have been catching errors finally can, because both pairs of eyes see the same current information in real-time.

PMG now manages 36 accounts with complete oversight, a scale that would have been operationally unmanageable under the Excel-based approach.

80% reduction in reconciliation time across all accounts. Automated position verification eliminates manual cross-checking between internal records and management company data.

100% audit trail coverage for every portfolio action. Every trade, modification, and update recorded automatically with timestamps and user IDs, enabling the four-eyes principle that Excel couldn’t support.

99.9% reduction in compliance-related errors through multi-layered verification. Pre-trade, post-trade, and post-booking checks create what the team describes as a “rock-solid” compliance foundation.

Real-time execution transparency across all trading activity. Instant visibility into order status and execution progress eliminated the uncertainty and manual tracking of the old workflow.

As PMG continues growing across new domiciles and client mandates, the platform scales with them. That’s the difference between software and a true operational foundation.