This month, MFI interviews ICD CEO Tory Hazard. We ask him about San Francisco-based ICD’s history in cash and discuss Prime funds, fee waiver pressures, current priorities, and ICD’s outlook for the coming year. Hazard reminds us why money market funds are “a valuable part of institutional investment portfolios in all yield environments,” and tells us that investors are “looking for products that earn at least some yield.” Our Q&A follows.
MFI: Give us a little history.
Hazard: ICD has been solely focused on the treasury marketplace from day one. As an agnostic provider of money market funds and short-term investments for institutional investors, we bring institutional investors together with hundreds of investment products. ICD was founded by three money market fund sales executives over 17 years ago, in 2003. Prior to forming ICD, the founders were working for big banks and were relegated to offering only their respective banks’ funds, using primitive technology. They recognized the opportunity to create an independent marketplace of investment products that could be accessed through an investment portal. Their vision was to provide clients with the best products and services in the industry, and that remains our mission today.
I joined the company in 2009 and served as CFO, COO and President before becoming CEO in 2017. Coming in, my key focus was to continue scaling the business while extending the value of the firm’s service and technology. We were the first portal company with operations in Europe. We were the first portal company to release a robust exposure analytics application. We led the portal industry in integrating treasury technologies, and we
introduced the industry’s first multi counterparty secure automated settlement solution. We’ll be announcing more industry innovations in 2021. Today, we serve over 400 companies across 65 industries in 43 countries around the world.
MFI: What are your current priorities?
Hazard: ICD is always iterating our technology based on client feedback. At ICD, we have a dedicated technology team in Golden, Colorado, and using agile methodology, we release ICD portal enhancements and updates every two weeks. Over the past 17 years, we’ve seen a massive move towards digitizing treasury, during which time organizations have developed a tech stack of different vertical applications to satisfy requirements for critical treasury functions. Today, we are focused on helping corporates unlock the value of data that resides within these systems and amplifying efficiencies around specific treasury workflows using API. We continue to coinnovate with clients on various touch points to gain new efficiencies and solve their unique problems. Examples include: new compliance rules, custom integrations and enhanced reporting. While we are continuously advancing our technology, we remain committed to our core principle of providing extraordinary service to our clients.
Source: Crane Data
