Zoe Cormier / en 茄子直播 entrepreneurs: Stephen Piron /news/u-t-entrepreneurs-stephen-piron <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">茄子直播 entrepreneurs: Stephen Piron</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2013-07-22T11:27:23-04:00" title="Monday, July 22, 2013 - 11:27" class="datetime">Mon, 07/22/2013 - 11:27</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Stephen Piron helps banks stay in regulators' good books (photo by Liam Sharp)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/zoe-cormier" hreflang="en">Zoe Cormier</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Zoe Cormier</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/features" hreflang="en">Features</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/victoria-college" hreflang="en">Victoria College</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/computer-science" hreflang="en">Computer Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/alumni" hreflang="en">茄子直播</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Computer Science grad uncovers fraud</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>In the wake of the 2008 crisis, 鈥渢he world of finance was broken,鈥 states <strong>Stephen Piron</strong>, a computer science grad and entrepreneur. Many governments tightened regulations, but the problems persist 鈥 albeit on a smaller scale, he says.</p> <p>Piron, who graduated with a BSc in 2003&nbsp;from Victoria College at the University of Toronto, takes a keen interest in the state of the world鈥檚 financial system. He鈥檚 working upwards of 100 hours a week running Bright Sun, a data analysis company he founded in London two years ago with the notion of helping financial companies stay on the right side of regulations. (<a href="http://brightsungroup.com/">Read about Bright Sun</a>.)</p> <p>鈥淭he idea of using data analysis for fraud detection isn鈥檛 new, but a series of bank scandals created a bigger appetite for cutting-edge surveillance tools,鈥 says Piron.</p> <p>Both the banks and the regulators grew fearful of the reputational damage that additional scandals could cause, and Piron recognized a market opportunity.</p> <p>鈥淭here is now a huge appetite for tools to pick out fraudsters.鈥</p> <p>Banks contend with vast amounts of data, related to thousands of transactions their traders carry out every day. The challenge they face, along with regulators, is finding instances of abuse.</p> <p>鈥淏anks have a duty to make sure their traders play by the rules,鈥 says Piron. 鈥淲e provide the tools for policing.鈥</p> <p>He says the organizations using Bright Sun鈥檚 software, which also include hedge funds, are alerted to potential abuse as it happens, allowing senior managers to investigate quickly to determine if abuse actually occurred. Managers can also look back over historical data for incidents with similar traders in the past. In other words: real-time and historical fraud analysis.</p> <p>The kind of analysis that Bright Sun offers 鈥 poring over buying and selling transaction patterns 鈥 has an additional use: it helps the bank determine if it has the right 鈥渋nventory鈥 of financial instruments at any given time. This sort of intelligence 鈥 the kind that enables a bank to know, for example, that its German clients typically buy Japanese government bonds at the beginning of the month 鈥 traditionally has been gathered by human traders through experience.</p> <p>鈥淪ometimes this human intelligence is excellent, but it is also subject to all of the biases humans are prone to,鈥 says Piron. 鈥淲e鈥檙e using a computer to gather the intelligence systematically and comprehensively.鈥</p> <p>Bright Sun is not Piron鈥檚 first tech startup. In 2004, he launched SimonSays Voice Technologies, which he describes as one of the world鈥檚 first speech-recognition technologies for search engines. The software converted audio and video into text transcripts, allowing search engines to search multimedia files. He sold the company in 2007 and worked for six months on Bay Street in quantitative finance before shipping over to London, where he landed a position with Man Investments.</p> <p>Then along came the financial crisis 鈥 and a market opportunity. Bright Sun launched as a solo venture, but now employs seven people full time; software engineers craft the data analysis tools while Piron handles most of the sales 鈥渢hrough old-fashioned knocking on doors.鈥</p> <p>Like his first venture, Bright Sun requires Piron to be on duty, or on call, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It鈥檚 a position he鈥檚 comfortable with, he says, compared to working for someone else.</p> <p>鈥淚n the corporate world, they put you in a box, and I don鈥檛 really fit in a box.鈥</p> <p><em>Zoe Cormier is a writer with 茄子直播 magazine</em>. (<a href="http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/">Read more articles from 茄子直播 Magazine</a>.)</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/stephen-piron-13-07-18.jpg</div> </div> Mon, 22 Jul 2013 15:27:23 +0000 sgupta 5502 at