About Us
We are the leading independent specialist in Danish mortgage-backed bonds and fixed income. Our aim is to provide you with a solid foundation when making strategic financial decisions.
We provide our customers across banking and financial sectors with advanced software, data services, and consultancy. Our work draws on more than 35 years of true dedication and experience in combining advanced software technology, financial modelling, and academic research with vast amounts of data.
The Beginning
Vitec Scanrate A/S started in 1986 as a spin-off from fixed income research at the Aarhus School of Business. Our present Head of Business Strategy, Svend Jakobsen, and two fellow colleagues, turned their research into the software system RIO – which is an acronym for the Danish ‘Rentestruktur for Inkonverterbare Obligationer’ and translates as: Term Structure of Interest Rates for Non-Callable Bonds.
It was the first and – and for several years the only – program capable of estimating zero coupon yield curves for the Danish bond market. Within the first two years, almost all larger Danish banks and several pension funds were using RIO – and most still do.
Scanrate Today
Today, we are 26 financial analysts and software developers at our office in Aarhus. With our dedication and deep financial knowledge, we develop products and data services that set new standards.
We believe in using complex programming to make life easier. For our customers as well as ourselves.
We believe in calculating the answers and automating the process. No matter if it is the analysis of risk and return features of Danish bonds or our daily Christmas draw for presents throughout December.
We believe in problem-solving. And we believe in getting it right the first time, because this means we can focus all our energy on new challenges instead of retracing our own steps. As part of Vitec Software Group we share the brand values "To rely on today and tomorrow".
The Scanrate management is made up of Jens Gadensgaard Hermann (CEO), Troels Rasmussen (Head of Fixed Income), and Svend Jakobsen (Head of Business Strategy).
Do you want to join us? Please check out our job openings.
Get a detailed overview of our history below the image.
Part of the Vitec Software Group
We are part of the Nordic Vitec Software Group, which, with 37 software companies and about 1,300 employees, is listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. A common feature of all the companies is that we develop business-critical software to meet the needs of specific industries with an overall mission of maximising clients’ possibilities for optimising, developing and protecting their business. This is also why our services cover everything from consulting, analysis and integration to deployment and hosting – always on the basis of Vitec Software Group’s core values.
Our History
Scanrate becomes part of Vitec
Scanrate becomes part of Vitec Software Group, a Swedish company that invests in domain specific software companies.
In Vitec, Scanrate continues as an independently run company with customers, products, employees, and management remaining as you know it. As a result Scanrate Financial Systems A/S officially becomes Vitec Scanrate A/S.
June, 2022
June, 2021
FRTB Compliance
As the development and implementation of the Basel III framework has progressed, we have extended our calculations to include relevant sensitivity calculation for Danish mortgage-backed bonds in accordance with FRTB. Scanrate’s FRTB sensitivities are now included as a basis for the capital requirement calculations in CRR2 in many Danish banks.
To explain the topic further, we have published a blog post series with the calculations and the effects on capital requirements based on different types of Danish mortgage-backed bonds.
Danske Bank expands our collaboration
After an expansion of the use of Scanrate Pricing Service in Danske Invest and Danske Bank Asset Management, Asset Management now also uses RIO for risk management along with performance and scenario analyses.
November, 2020
September, 2020
FactSet
A new collaboration with FactSet has made it possible to offer data and tools to analyse Danish mortgage-backed bonds across all of their distribution channels, including FactSet Workstation, through a dynamic web service integration with the RIO system.
Scanrate Pricing Service
Along several years of improving our pricing models in the service, more and more customers are using the service. These include RBC Investor & Treasury Services in Luxembourg who apply data to NAV calculation on a selection of fonds. Scanrate Pricing Service is both accessible directly from Scanrate and from Refinitiv DataScope Select.
July, 2020
July, 2019
PRI
Following new EU regulation for risk labeling of PRIIPS, we develop the PRI Service. This service calculates similar risk indicators for bonds and equities facilitating comparison of risk across more portfolios and asset classes.
Scanrate enters into collaborating with two of Japan’s largest asset managers
The interest for the Danish mortgage-backed bond market has travelled overseas – all the way to Japan. Here, Nikko Asset Management and Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management use the RIO software to analyse their Danish mortgage-backed bond portfolios.
May, 2018
April, 2018
MiFID II
Through our services we are now offering critical values for MiFID II/MiFIR reports, e.g. CFI code, FISN and LCR. This equals a strengthened investor protection and greater transparency for our customers when trading Danish bonds.
We Introduce a New Product: Lima
Our new software system Lima is released. Lima provides the complete overview of a company’s assets and long-term debts across loan type, counterparts, and subsidiaries.
August, 2016
May, 2016
Release of Danish Bond Data Portal
As part of the Danish Bond Data service, which we offer in co-operation with Thomson Reuters (which later became Refinitiv, then LSEG/London Stock Exchange Group), we launch a new portal that customers can use to access the service.
Release of Scanrate Model Service Website
We launch a new website for subscribers to the Scanrate Model Service.
June, 2015
December, 2014
Scanrate Founder Receives Honorary Award
Scanrate founder Svend Jakobsen receives an honorary award from the Danish Finance Society (Finansforeningen) for his long time work on the valuation of Danish mortgage-backed securities.
Consultant on Refinancing Auction Risk
As a consultant for Danmarks Nationalbank, Scanrate analyses several proposals for a new law aimed at reducing the refinancing risk of Danish adjustable rate mortgage loans. Read the report (in Danish).
November, 2013
September, 2013
Scanrate Becomes Official Partner of Numerix
We have worked extensively with the Numerix CrossAsset analytics platform and the Numerix SDK library on several projects. Based on this experience we offer our consultancy services to customers building financial solutions involving the Numerix libraries.
Technical Report for the Money and Pension Panel
As expert consultant, Scanrate founder Svend Jakobsen writes a technical report for the Money and Pension Panel established by the Danish Parliament. The report develops a set of standard principles to use when scenario analyses (horisontberegninger) are used in mortgage loan counseling.
The recommendations of the report are approved by the panel, which includes representatives from the banking industry, the mortgage credit institutions, the consumer council, and a number of other experts.
September, 2013
September, 2012
Service Becomes ISAE 3402 Certified
The Evaluated Pricing Service jointly developed by SIX Financial Information, and Scanrate is reviewed and ISAE 3402 certified by an international audit firm.
Scanrate develops New OAS Index Model
Since 2002, we have been involved in the pricing of illiquid Danish bonds by the use of bond spreads.
In 2011, we develop a new OAS Index model in which we pool bonds based on bond characteristics. For each pool we use prices from the available set of traded bonds (liquid bonds) to identify the relevant spread to use for the illiquid part of the market.
December, 2011
January, 2010
SIX' Evaluated Pricing Service Keeps Expanding
Bonds with embedded call, put and make whole options are added to the SIX Financial Information Evaluated Pricing Service, extending the coverage to 125,000 bonds in 11 currencies.
Extensions of Evaluated Pricing Service
The SIX Financial Information Evaluated Pricing Service is extended with six new currencies adding approximately 6,500 more bonds to the coverage of the service (January).
Later the same year, the service is extended with 28,000 floating rate notes and capped floaters (December).
January, 2008
February, 2007
Launch of Evaluated Pricing Service in Switzerland
SIX Financial Information Ltd., Zürich and Scanrate launch Evaluated Pricing Service – a new service based on the SIX Financial Information global fixed income database.
Coverage includes daily calculation of fair value for 55,000 bonds in five currencies (EUR, USD, GBP, JPY and CHF) and five rating categories. The service provides full technical documentation and transparency by allowing access to the assumptions underlying each individual calculation.
New in RIO: Pricing Models for Interest Rate Derivatives
Pricing models for interest rate derivatives are added to RIO. Facilities include swaps, caps, swaptions and Bermudan and trigger options.
July, 2005
April, 2004
Delivery of Data to RiskMetrics Group Ltd, NY
We partner with RiskMetrics Group Ltd, New York to deliver risk mappings of Danish Mortgage Bonds for use in Value-at-Risk (VaR) calculations.
Launch of Boligregner.dk
We launch Boligregner.dk – an advanced online mortgage calculator comparing total mortgage loan cost in different yield curve scenarios.
March, 2004
March, 2002
VP Security Services and Scanrate Develop Model for Fair Value Pricing of Illiquid Bonds
VP Securities Services (Værdipapircentralen) and Scanrate develop and launch a model for fair pricing of illiquid bonds. The fair values are part of the vpFact feed and used by Danmarks Nationalbank and market participants to calculate collateral values.
Cooperation with SimCorp
We enter into an agreement with SimCorp to develop an interface to make RIO mortgage bond calculations available within SimCorp Dimension.
February, 2002
July, 2001
Launch of Danish Bond Data
We launch the Danish Bond Data service. The service – originally named Danish Data Download – is developed by Scanrate and distributed by Thomson Reuters.
Release of RIO 4.0
We release RIO 4.0 – a new generation of the RIO System with capabilities to handle more asset classes such as caps, swaps, swaptions, FRA's and capped floaters (BoligX).
May, 2001
June, 2000
Launch of Scanrate DMBS Model
The Scanrate Danish Mortgage Backed Securities Model (DMBS) is launched. Scanrate now provides real time Danish MBS analytics to Thomson Reuters' global network.
Release of the Scanrate Model Service
The Scanrate Model Service is launched. This service, which is our first data service, provides RIO customers with updated MBS models and new research topics on a quarterly basis.
July, 1999
1997-1998
RIO add-in for Excel
A new line of Microsoft Excel add-in function libraries are launched. The libraries include facilities such as:
- Access to all data in RIO's databases
- Basic fixed income analysis
- Zero-coupon term structure calculations
- Mortgage backed bond analysis
- VaR/RiskMetrics
- Risk/return holding period analysis (scenario analysis)
- Optimization of bond portfolios
Introduction of RIO/Horisont
We introduce RIO/Horisont which calculates risk profiles as well as holding period returns based on user-defined yield curve scenarios. The system has full support for Danish mortgage-backed bonds including scenario specific prepayment forecasts, bucket analysis etc.
1996
1993
Introduction of RIO/Konvert
We introduce RIO/Konvert – an interactive program used by banks to perform detailed prepayment recommendations. The program is an instant success due to the rapid decline in interest rates and the implied pressure for refinancing of housing loans.
Introduction of RIO/Optikon
The new program module RIO/Optikon is presented. RIO/Optikon is a system for pricing Danish mortgage-backed securities.
One advantage of the model is the speed of calculation which is facilitated by an innovative so-called mixture-of-distributions approach for the prepayment behavior.
In this approach the burnout effect is fully dealt with and with no requirement for time-consuming Monte Carlo simulations.
1991
1986/1988
RIO
RIO is sold to almost all larger Danish banks and several pension funds.
The idea of using estimated zero-coupon bond yield curves as an alternative to yield to maturity is propagated in the Danish financial community.
The First RIO System Sold
An early version of RIO is sold to Danish broker/investment bank Gudme Raaschou. At this time RIO is the only program on the market which can estimate zero-coupon term structures and use the results for bond arbitrage.
November, 1986
November, 1986
Scanrate Financial Systems A/S Founded
Scanrate is founded by Svend Jakobsen, Carsten Tanggaard, and Anders Grosen as a spin-off from fixed income research at the Aarhus School of Business.