Custody Risk European Awards 2014: Asset Servicing Technology Vendor of the Year

Retaining a Custody Risk award is an achievement in itself but, for DST Global Solutions (acquired by SS&C Technologies on December 1, 2014), completing a fifth consecutive win in this competitive category with its asset servicing solution HiPortfolio (now SS&C HiPortfolio) is a major success.

Arun Sarwal, head of SS&C HiPortfolio and Anova, says: “Winning this award for five years in a row is testament to our continual investment, ensuring we continue to help asset servicers respond to today’s challenges, while supporting them in achieving their future growth plans. Now, as part of SS&C, we look forward to further enhancing HiPortfolio’s capabilities for the global investment management community.”

Working with the investment operations of asset servicers, asset managers and insurers located in more than 20 countries has been a key focus over the past year. The global nature of the customer base is backed by support and development centres in Australia, Thailand and the UK. Clients benefit from leveraging global best practice, coupled with the practical application of local industry knowledge.

Significant investment has delivered new capabilities that support core fund accounting operations, help achieve operational efficiency and deliver technological improvements for improved integration, automation and workflow.

As asset servicers move steadily away from manual processing and demand quicker, more accurate data delivery to clients, SS&C HiPortfolio has strived to improve automation across the investment operation. Altogether, 150 projects were delivered to 60 different companies worldwide in addition to focusing on the expansion of instrument coverage and derivatives processing, the extension of corporate actions processing automation and the delivery of an events-driven framework to help manage operations more efficiently.

“The number of transactions and events being processed within investment operations has grown exponentially and can now only be effectively managed by dealing with exceptions and intelligent alerting,” says Geoff Harries, head of asset servicing – SS&C HiPortfolio.

The asset servicing division of a large investment bank says the solution improved its competitiveness. “In an environment where margin, regulatory and customer pressures are increasing, our expanded use of HiPortfolio helps us to streamline our operations and meet demand from superannuation funds and fund managers for more diversified products such as asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities,” an executive at the bank says.

Arun Sarwal, head of SS&C HiPortfolio and Anova, SS&C Technologies

Further recommendation comes from a leading Chinese insurance company. SS&C HiPortfolio has a “proven track record” in China and currently services 60% of the Chinese insurance market. The client says the system’s China-specific capabilities, including the support of multiple asset classes, multiple currencies and advanced tax calculations, was key to their choosing the solution.

The biggest regulatory challenge facing asset servicing customers has been the move to T+2, according to Geoff Harries. “Many [clients] are working with HiPortfolio to automate all component parts of their post-trade life cycle to remove manual processing. Shorter settlement cycles are forcing organisations to re-evaluate the confirmation and settlement process area specifically, igniting a focus on implementing current market best practice.”

Around half of revenues in 2013–2014 came from custodians and asset servicers. Major projects delivered include optimising swaps processing, corporate actions automation and unit-pricing attribution reporting. This further builds on the solution’s core strength areas of derivations accounting, corporate actions processing and unit pricing, in addition to its core investment accounting and fund administration capabilities.

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