ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the retail investments use case and smaller ‘caselets’. The retail investments industry regulator and government expect participants to assess retail investors’ attitudes to risk, their inherent and explicit vulnerabilities and to report constantly on the state of the mutual funds and market conditions generally. Retail investments software has been around since the early days of the spreadsheet and the internet, but the fund management industry could never be categorised as a modern or technologically advanced industry. The investor is expected to pay the fees for the retail investments services used. The portfolio manager is a role related to that of adviser but is usually not client-facing and is often highly technical in nature, for example, that of the discretionary fund manager. The retail investments supply chain is complex, often manual and can be subject to delay, for example in respect of transactions and cash processing.
