Financial Services

"When you work with A-1 Technology, you profit from our focused knowledge and skills. We work closely with financial services companies, helping them to create the best possible experience for their customers. Our clients include banks, full-service and discount brokerage houses, insurance firms, mutual fund companies, and other financial firms. We provide you with everything you need to make the technology profitable for your company. "

A-1 Technology serve financial services companies by offering quality software development, maintenance and testing services at competitive prices.

We follow an on-site /off-site delivery model that allows you to take advantage of the lower costs of our offshore website development center capability without sacrificing the advantages of working with a local firm.

Some of our key services include:
Consulting Services
Our e-strategy services develop strategies with businesses seeking to transform existing systems to e-business models as well as with new e-businesses seeking to articulate their vision and formulate their e-business strategies. A-1 Technology provides IT strategy and architecture consulting services to commercial banks, asset management firms, insurance firms, brokerage firms, investment banks and hedge funds.

Implementation and Product Development Services
A-1 Technology provides project services for clients implementing an eBrokerage solution in-house and for clients implementing an outsourced solution. Project services include project management, training, system implementation, custom interfaces, data conversion, integrated testing, custom software, localization, and version upgrade services. Project services are delivered by trained, financial service industry professionals.

Maintenance and Support Services
The services organization is responsible for help desk, research, systems operations and application quality assurance. A response team made up of research, quality assurance and programming personnel is assigned when maintenance issues are identified. This team works together to ensure that the customer issue is understood and dispatched accordingly. All issues are tracked and measured, and daily and weekly reports are generated for management review and action. Each client is assigned an account manager. Account managers may be located around the globe and will work in conjunction with the services organization in New Jersey. The account management people are responsible for issue resolution.

Global Data Service
As part of its consulting practice, A-1 Technology provides extensive advise on market data services including real-time, delayed and historical securities data, futures, mutual funds, options, corporate financials, interest rates, bond data, earnings calls and global business news. This is critical for any financial services company employing an online strategy. Separately our data definition practice specializes in data audit and building and cleansing of data to provide consistency across databases.

Outsourcing
A-1 Technology offers a dedicated development center model to our clients in which a software development team that is dedicated to a single client uses technology, tools, processes and methodologies unique to that client. Each dedicated development center is located at an A-1 Technology facility in India and is staffed and managed by the Company.

Financial Services Solutions

Portals and Websites

• Broker & Advisor Portals. Empower your advisors and brokers with relevant and up-to-date information.
• Investor Websites. Enhance the stickiness and relevance of your investor web sites.

Front Office

• Analyst Workstations. Empower your employees with enriched information for in-house analysis.
• Quantitative Modeling Engines. Enhance and automate your in-house quantitative models.

Middle Office

• Trading Applications. Optimize and analyze your trading efficiency. Provide real-time feedback to your traders
• Compliance Applications. Verify the compliance of your trading execution. Ensure the OFAC compliance of your new accounts.

Back Office

• Accounting Systems. Price your portfolios on a timely and accurate basis
• Performance Reporting Systems. Benchmark the performance of your business decisions

Work at Home Business Opportunity

When you are considering a work at home business opportunity you need to know how to choose the right one for you. There are a lot of businesses available to you, and it can sometimes be overwhelming to choose between them. Also, there are scams to look out for and skill considerations. So how does a person sort through all of the factors to find the right work at home business opportunity?

First, it is important to find a work at home business opportunity that works with what you love. What is the point of starting a sales-based business if you hate selling? There is very little point, because you probably will not succeed if you do not like what you are doing. It is too easy to get bored and disconnected from your job. So your first task is to discover what you love.

Once you know what your passions are, then you can look into finding a work at home business opportunity that fits with at least one of those passions. There are all kinds of businesses available from sales to writing to data entry that can all be conducted from home. Some require a lot of customer service and contact and others require only the use of e-mail and minimal contact with people. The choice is yours.

After you narrow down the businesses, you also need to look closely at your skills and see which work at home business opportunity fits with your skill level. If you are a brand new entrepreneur, you may want to go with a pre-made business that comes with a lot of training. Or you may want to create your own business from scratch if you have the knowledge and skills to do so. Start off by listing your skills and seeing what you will need to start the different types of businesses out there.

Even though you are narrowing your list down based upon your passions and skills, you still need to look closely at the businesses you are considering. If you are starting in an MLM or affiliate business, you need to do your research into each business. You have to understand the difference between a scam and a legitimate work at home business opportunity.

Take some time to read through articles about how to identify scams. The few minutes it takes you to familiarize yourself with the common scams like pyramid schemes, stuffing envelopes, or assembly jobs will save you money later. Unfortunately there are a number of people out there that are just there to take your money rather than offer you a legitimate work at home business opportunity. Know who they are.

How to Control Your Expenses to Eliminate Debt

This sounds simple, but to control your expenses you first must understand what they are. The only way to be sure you know what you spend is to record everything. This is hard to do. Then you will need to do something even more difficult, Sacrifice and Live on a Budget. Ouch, all people including you and me hate those two words. But it will take sacrifice to get out of debt. The good news is that it will be worth it.

Every time you make a sacrifice and stay on budget you will be investing in your future. Always keep that in mind. Every step you make towards getting out of debt means you are closer to having your money work for you.

The major expenses you can control on a day to day budget are:

* General Expenses It could be music equipment, car washes, computer games, anything. Any things you can figure out which are not your needs. Maybe there isn’t anything you can think of, but there probably is. Maybe at least once a month, when you go to buy something on impulse, you force yourself not to do it.

* Food Expenses Stop going out to eat. This will be a huge sacrifice for most, but you have to stop going out to eat;it’s too expensive. You need to bring your lunch to work and, if you have a Starbuck’s addiction, stop buying $2 cups of coffee. Many people can save $50 a month just by brewing their own coffee, another $100 by bringing their lunch to work, and another $200 by not going out to eat for dinner.

* Clothing Expenses Always decide what you are going to purchase before you go into the store and stick to it. Do all your shopping at home. If you truly need a new jacket because the old one has a hole in it and it’s really cold outside then you can go get a jacket. But don’t start looking around for the skirts and hats while you are there. Get the jacket and run!

* Entertainment Expenses You like to have fun and you need to have fun. However, if you are in debt then, you need to sacrifice at least one major entertainment expense a month. Whatever it is you like to do (movies, concerts, plays, out to eat, sports, etc.) you need to reduce the frequency by at least once a month.

* Gasoline Expenses As everyone is aware,gas prices have grown astronomically in recent times. For many years gas prices had been relatively level and it seems that they are making up ground ina short period of time. At $3 and more per gallon, gasoline has become a major expense for most households and needs to be specially addressed when looking at ways to control expenses. Getting a car with a good gas mileage and reduce your total driving miles can save you some significant amount of money. If you have colleagues leave close to you, then get them to carpool with you and share the gasoline expenses.

If you follow some basic rules on each of these tips on reducing debt and budgeting expenses and are willing to sacrifice you can save a good significant amount of money each month. That will put a dent in your credit card debt in no time.

Understand Foreclosure Homes

Purchasing a foreclosure home or investing in foreclosure homes has become a popular business these days. The foreclosed properties can be purchased at a very less cost than the actual cost of the property means this can make a good profit to the buyer. And this is why this business has become popular and profitable too. But before investing in foreclosure real estate properties you should know the basics of this business.

Do you really know what foreclosed homes and real estate properties are? Do you have the exact idea how to invest in foreclosure real estate homes? If your answer is ?no? then you may get some tips on foreclosure homes from here to get your desired home.

Lets know first about the foreclosures:
Foreclosure homes are the homes that are for sale as its homeowner has defaulted on home loans and not found regular in making monthly payments on home loan. So the lender repossessed the home and now the house is foreclosed house. If homeowner does not consistently make payment on home loan by this legal method the lender can repossess the house.

How to get a Foreclosure home:
If homeowner has defaulted on home loan and did not find regular in making monthly payments on the loan, the lender or bank or government repossesses the property. Now the lender wishes to get his money back by selling the foreclosed home. For doing this the home is put in an auction for bidding and the property goes to the bidder whose bidding is the highest. So If one want to get a new home, vacation home or want to invest in this foreclosure business, he can get the homes by bidding high in these auctions. In order to get the foreclosure home one should look for the companies or sources. With the help of this you can get online and offline lists of foreclosure homes. Means if you are interested in purchasing or investing in foreclosure homes. In general you have two ways to get your goals either you purchase the desired home by placing a bid in a public auction or you can purchase the home from a legal property lender.

Profits:
The business of purchasing or investing of foreclosure homes is a profitable business as you purchase the foreclosed home at a cost that is less than the actual cost of the property. If you want to get more profit with this business you must have to make a search for the good property but at the right time. After some time this property can be sold with a healthy profit.

Credit Cards Utilized to Get out of Debt?

The purpose of this article is to outline some very important, yet often overlooked bits of information regarding the feasibility of utilizing credit cards to actually get out of debt.

I am sure that most of you are inundated daily by credit card applications and the latest greatest credit card offers. It should be obvious that these offers are simply a prime example of the famous bait and tackle method. However, it is very possible to utilize these offers to your advantage. I will list a few methods below.

If you are currently bogged down by credit card debt and really feel stuck due to the high rate you seriously need to consider opening another credit card. That is probably the last thing you thought I would recommend, however, I firmly believe it is the best option for some people. Many will look to debt consolidation companies for a quick fix and you may have looked into them as well. You need to consider this before taking that step. Most debt consolidation companies affect your actual credit score almost as badly as filing bankruptcy does (one step up from Bankruptcy). Also, a majority of the debt consolidation companies out there are owned by the credit card companies. So, why open a new credit card?

You must utilize the credit card companies? bait and tackle method to your advantage and open up a new card. I should preface this first by saying that it is likely something you?ve already thought about, maybe even done already. This requires pure discipline and if you don?t have it don?t do this. I am aware that an abundance of people are already doing this and it is nothing new, all I am here to say is that it works and should be considered.

The first thing you need to do is focus on offers on balance transfers that give you either 0% or below prime for the life of the balance transfer. For example, I currently have two credit cards, one with a rate of 0% on the entire balance (for the life of the balance) and the other with a rate of prime minus 2% (also for the life of the balance). 100% of my credit card debt falls across these two cards and I can sleep at night knowing that I am not getting charged 20+% and that my debt snowball process will actually be effective. You should also consider that the offer is void if you make a late payment. This is where the discipline comes in. You need to use your banks online bill payment option, make sure your account has over draft protection and set it up to make your payment automatically. Also, and even more importantly, DO NOT ACTUALLY USE THE CARD!

Finally, there are a ton of misconceptions that opening/closing multiple credit cards will negatively affect your credit score. I am here to tell you that it will negatively affect your credit score, however, no where near like going to a debt consolidation company would.

Introduction to Life Insurance

Life insurance is a means for providing financial protection for your family in the event of your death. A life insurance contract is relatively straightforward; you agree to pay a premium at regular intervals, and the insurance company agrees to pay a certain sum of money to your beneficiary upon your death.

There are three parties to a life insurance contract. First, there is the insured. This is the person whose life is being insured under the policy. Next, there is the insurer. The insurer is the insurance company who underwrites the risk. And third, there is the owner. The owner and insured are not necessarily one and the same. Someone can buy a life insurance policy to insure the life of someone else, such as their spouse. The person who buys the policy is the owner, and the person whose life the policy is based on is the insured. When the owner and the insured are different people, premium payments are the responsibility of the owner.

Every life insurance contract also has a beneficiary. This is the person who receives the proceeds from the policy in the event of the death of the insured, and is assigned by the owner. There are two types. An irrevocable beneficiary can not be changed unless the beneficiary gives his or her permission; if it is revocable, the owner can change it at any time.

The policy is subject to certain terms and conditions. There are usually certain exclusions that apply, depending on the person being insured. But with almost every policy, death as the result of suicide during the first two years of the policy term is excluded from coverage. Also, during the first two years of the policy, often referred to as the contestable period, the insurance company retains the right to not immediately pay out, even if the death is caused by a condition that is covered in the policy. The company can order an investigation into the death of the insured, to make sure that the death was not deliberate or the result of homicide.

The amount paid to the beneficiary is called the face amount. The maturity date is reached upon either the date when the insured deceases or reaches a certain age. Life insurance is most often used to provide income protection to the spouse of the deceased. Regardless of the reason for buying the insurance, the owner (if not the same person as the insured), must have an insurable interest. In other words, the owner of the contract must have a reason for wanting to insure the life of that person, otherwise the contract is void.

When the person covered by the policy dies, the insurance company requires proof of death before paying the claim. A notarized death certificate is the most commonly accepted form of proof. The benefit is paid out either as a lump sum or as an annuity that is paid out over time. Any annuity can be a good way to receive the benefits. It is possible for the beneficiary to set up a lifetime annuity, which would guarantee that person a certain amount of monthly income for the rest of his or her life.

There are two basic types of life insurance, temporary and permanent. Temporary insurance is known as term life. An example of a term policy would be a 20-year term life, which means that the policy will pay a death benefit if the person dies within the next twenty years. Permanent insurance includes whole life and universal life. Whole life provides for a payout no matter when the person dies, but premiums have to continue to be paid, usually right up until the insured reaches the age of 100. Universal policies are somewhat similar, but they allow for greater premium flexibility. Universal insurance is somewhat complicated; you should talk to an agent before buying it.

I hope this information has helped you become acquainted with life insurance. You should sit down with your spouse and talk about buying a policy. Then, call an agent who works for an insurance company with a strong financial rating and make an appointment to discuss your objectives. Use the information that was presented here to help you make intelligent choices so your family will be protected in the event that something happens to you.