RiskMetrics takes over JPMorgan’s analytics

Outsourcing agreement means WealthBench will merge with Arakis in order to bring economy of scale to online wealth management service. JPMorgan Chase has outsourced the analytics operation behind its online wealth management service to RiskMetrics, the financial analysis and technology firm. Under the deal, New York-based RiskMetrics will acquire the analytics operation, known as Arakis, including technology, web support, maintenance and development responsibilities. Arakis will continue to power Morgan Online. Prior to the arrangement, RiskMetrics was already providing a number of tools to Arakis. Ethan Berman, chief executive of RiskMetrics, said the assimilation of Arakis’s “people, resources and capacity” would bring a “significantly improved analysis, more powerful tools to understand both risk and return, as well as cost savings through a larger economy of scale.” Arakis has 37 staff and 1000 clients, according to Mr Berman. It will be merged into RiskMetrics’s WealthBench suite of analytics. Worldwide, WealthBench serves private wealth managers such as Bear Stearns, as well as smaller independent financial adviser operations with as few as 10 staff members. Mr Berman said that WealthBench is updated continuously, but most often changes are made in order to keep pace with developments in local tax regulations. Details of the terms and conditions of the transaction were not disclosed.