CFRA is at the forefront of the Research-as-a-Service (RaaS) paradigm; An approach that allows wealth management and institutional clients to access and integrate financial research and data from seasoned industry leading analysts without the cost or complexity of building and managing their own internal teams. Washington Analysis, with its 50-year history of timely and actionable policy-focused insights, is now available via CFRA’s RaaS.
NEW YORK, June 7, 2023 – CFRA, the world’s leading provider of independent investment research, is today announcing the rollout of a powerful new distribution capability for its political and public policy research offering, delivering these timely and actionable insights to clients via API (application programming interface) or data feed.
Acquired by CFRA in 2021, Washington Analysis provides in-depth coverage across the most heavily regulated sectors, including defense, energy, financials, healthcare, housing, technology, and telecommunications. Washington Analysis also provides actionable insights on political, foreign policy, merger and acquisition, tax, and trade developments with the perspective of implications to financial markets and investors. Timely research publications are complimented by direct access to senior analysts and frequent in-person and virtual events offering unique perspectives from key players across the policy and political arena.
Washington Analysis’ broad and deep policy and political research can now be integrated directly into investors Research Management Systems (RMS), whether they are internal platforms or via 3rd party vendor solutions, creating seamless analytical workflows. Integration into client technology platforms can now power advanced AI and machine learning analysis tools, such as Natural Language Processing (NLP), Natural Language Generation (NLG), sentiment scoring, and generative AI. To ensure seamless integration with client platforms, CFRA product and engineering teams worked closely with clients and distribution vendor partners to provide a turnkey integration solution that includes customized API endpoints, allowing clients to dramatically improve the speed and quality of processing research to take more expedited investment decisions.
“The work of our policy analysts has always been highly distinctive and, given the clear impact of the current political and policy climate on financial markets, has perhaps never been timelier,” said John Sonsalla, Head of Policy & Legal Research with CFRA.
“With the rollout of this new enterprise delivery solution, it is now possible to seamlessly integrate the team’s policy insights directly into a client’s research management platform in real-time. Speed, insights, and accuracy are all cornerstones of an effective research offering, and we are excited to introduce this approach for our research,” added John Horn, Commercial Manager with CFRA.
The CFRA RaaS solution will enable key new capabilities and workflows with Washington Analysis research:
- Search by keyword, ticker, and other meta data tags;
- Create watchlists to receive updates in real-time, eliminating the risk of missing the latest research updates;
- Access historical reports, allowing for the identification of developing and historical trends and patterns and rapidly onboard new analysts; and
- Establish compliance and risk management alerts when new information becomes available on specific companies and policies.
“Actionable and insightful research is most valuable to clients if it can be delivered, discussed, and acted upon quickly, seamlessly, and in the most cost-effective ways. That philosophy is at the core of our innovative Research-as-a-Service approach,” added Eram Schlegel, Chief Product and Marketing Officer with CFRA. “APIs, data feeds, mobile and web platforms are all core delivery options that form the framework for a robust RaaS-driven approach. Clients can benefit from a fully integrated offering of crucial research they need to make the best investment decisions without the cost, risk and complexity of having an in-house research team. We’re eager to extend our RaaS suite to include policy and political research.”
The addition of policy research to their enterprise delivery platform helps further the firm’s tech-driven mission and approach, joining other RaaS offerings that include fundamental research, ETF data, and analytics. The firm expects to expand its enterprise delivery platform to include its technical research offering later this year.
For more information on Washington Analysis, please visit our Public Policy Research page.