Funds. Su solución de mensajería para las operaciones con hedge funds, fondos comunes de inversión y fondos de pensiones

Transcripción

1 Funds Su solución de mensajería para las operaciones con hedge funds, fondos comunes de inversión y fondos de pensiones

2 Bajo presión? Demasiado papel, faxes y procesamiento manual? Clientes más exigentes? Ciclos de liquidación más estrictos? Relaciones complicadas? Canales de distribución multi-canal? Volúmenes crecientes? Conformidad más estricta? Reducción de su cuota de mercado? Funds Su solución de mensajería para las operaciones con hedge funds, fondos comunes de inversión y fondos de pensiones Ventajas Está buscando una solución? Reduzca su TER y reduzca el riesgo y los costes operativos Servicios de aviso y confirmación de operaciones de varias clases de activos Servicios de informes de carteras con varias clases de activos Aproveche su inversión en Funds en todas sus operaciones nacionales e internacionales de hedge funds, fondos comunes de inversión, y fondos de pensiones. Ventajas del uso de SWIFT Reducción de riesgos, reducción de costes Los distribuidores, las gestoras de fondos y los agentes de transferencias que han implantado SWIFT para la distribución de fondos han reducido su coste operativo de gestión de pedidos entre un 50% y un 70%. Mejora del servicio al cliente La automatización de la captura de pedidos e informes elimina los errores y permite que la información se envíe de forma segura y puntual. Los distribuidores que han implementado SWIFT para cursar pedidos han podido ampliar los plazos de recepción de ventas en sus oficinas, ya que se elimina la carga de trabajo manual. Las gestoras de fondos y los agentes de Inversor Distribuidores Agente de transferencia transferencias pueden responder mejor a las necesidades de generación de informes de sus redes de distribuidores. Lograr la escalabilidad La plataforma de mensajería sólida y escalable de SWIFT puede ampliarse fácilmente para aceptar grandes volúmenes y numerosas contrapartes. Esto le libera del peso y los grandes costes de desarrollo y mantenimiento de soluciones propias para cada contraparte. Acceso a socios en todo el mundo. Con más de instituciones financieras, incluidos la mayoría de los actores que participan en el sector de los fondos, SWIFT ofrece una única ventana para conectarse con sus contrapartes directamente o mediante un concentrador o infraestructura de mercado, utilizando Concentradores Agente de contabilidad Fideicomisario Agente de efectivo Gestor de fondos Conectividad, normas y mensajería de SWIFT 2

3 los mismos estándares de mensajes. Los bancos, corredores, las aseguradoras, los gestores de inversiones y las gestoras de fondos (incluyendo los agentes de transferencias) son algunos de los participantes que utilizan SWIFT de forma activa. Además, se puede acceder directamente a otros canales de distribución, como los asesores financieros, a través de Closed User Group (grupos cerrados de usuarios) o indirectamente mediante plataformas concentradoras, como los supermercados de fondos. Apertura y mantenimiento de cuentas Pedidos y confirmaciones Estado de las órdenes pendientes Transferencias Declaraciones (posesiones, transacciones) Informes de precios Informes de flujo de caja Informes de comisiones Solicitudes de declaraciones Informe de datos estadísticos (folleto) Nacional Internacional Minorista Institucional Fondos comunes de inversión Fondos de cobertura Implementación de soluciones de automatización integrales El programa de socios globales (global partnering program) de SWIFT permite acceder a proveedores acreditados de servicios de Integración de Aplicaciones de Empresa (EAI), proveedores de aplicaciones empresariales, especialistas de integración y asesores especializados en el sector de fondos de inversión. Esto garantiza que los principales sistemas de contabilidad de fondos, los agentes de transferencia, los sistemas de gestión de pedidos y los EAI trabajen con SWIFT, facilitando el procesamiento directo (STP). Alcance de los nuevos mensajes internacionales estándar del mercado abierto Algunos usuarios existentes de la solución Funds de SWIFT 2S Banca (IT) Bank fuer Arbeit und Wirtschaft (AT) ABN Amro (AU) Bank of New York (LU/GB/IE) ABN AmroAM (HK) Bankhaus Carl Spaengler (AT) ABN Amro Bank N.V. (TW) Banque de Gestion Privee (FR) ACM (LU) Banque de Luxembourg (LU) AIG Private Bank (CH) Banque E de Rotschild (LU) Para más información, póngase en contacto con su responsable de cuenta de SWIFT o visite la página de AhorroCorp. Financiera (ES) AllfundsBank (ES/IT) Allianz Global Inv (HK) ANZ (AU) AS Hansapank (EE) Asia Fund Services (SG) Attrax (LU) AUSMAQ (AU) AVIVA Funds (LU) AxaRosenberg (GB/SG) Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (IT) Banca Sella (IT) Banco Commercial Portugues (PT) Bancode Investimento Global (PT) Banco de Sabadell (ES) Banco InversisNet (ES) Banca Internacional d Andorra (AD) BancoPopular (ES) Bank Consortium (TW) Barclays Global Investors (GB/AU) Barclays Global Investors N.A. (USA) BBVA (ES) BGPI Private Banking (FR) BlackRock Financial Management Inc (USA) Brown Brothers Harriman (US) BBH Infomediary (US) BNP Paribas (AU) BNP Paribas Asset Management (FR) BNP Paribas Asset Servicing (FR) BNP Paribas Funds Services (IE/GB) BNP Paribas Private Bank (HK) BNP Paribas Private Bank (SG) BNP Paribas Securities Services (FR/DE/IT/LU) BT Wrap (AU) BysisFund Services (IE) CACEIS Bank Luxembourg (LU)-CACEIS (FR) Capita HartsHead (GB) Capital Markets (ES) Capitalia AM (IT) 3

4 Capitalia (IT) Cathay United Bank (TW) Chinatrust Commercial Bank (TW) CITCO Bank (IT/IE) Citibank (LU/SG) CPR Asset Management (FR) Credit Agricole AM (FR) Credit Foncier de Monaco (FR) Credit Suisse AM Funds Services (LU) Credit Suisse Zurich (CH) DahSingh Bank (HK) DBS (SG) Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (US) Direktanlage (AT) DWS (DE) DZ (DE) EFA (LU) EFS (LU) Europeenne de Gestion Privee (IT/CH/FR) Eurosafei (ES) FASTNET (FR) Fidelity Investments (LU/GB/SE) First Commercial Bank (TW) First New Zealand (UK) Ltd Fortis Prime Fund Solutions Bank (IE) Franklin Templeton (LU) FundSettle (Euroclear) (BE) FundServ (CA) Hang Seng (HK) Hauck & Aufhaueser Priv Bk KGAA (DE) HSBC InsttlTrust Serv (HK) HSBC Investments (HK) HSBC Private Bank (HK) HSBC Securities Services (SG/AU) Hypo Vereinsbank (AE) IBT (US) Iccrea Banca (IT) IFDS (GB) IFSAM/HSH NordBankSecurities (LU) ING AM (AU) ING Financial Planners (HK) ING Luxembourg (LU) IntesaSan Paolo (IT) InvescoAsia (HK) InvescoGlobal Distributors (IE) JF Asset Management (HK) JPMorgan Bank (LU) JPMorgan Asset Management (LU) Jupiter Asset Management (GB) Legal & General IM (GB) LeleuxAssociated Brokers (BE) Liberty ErmitageLuxembourg (LU) Loebb Partners (US) Lyxor AM Paris (FR) Lyxor AM Intl Paris (FR) Mega Intl Commercial Bank Co (TW) Mellon Bank N.A. (UK) Mellon Bank N.A. (USA) Mellon European Fund Services (GB) Merrill Lynch (GB) Metzler Bank Fund Xchange (DE) MFEX (FR) MFEX Mutual Funds Exchange (SE) National Australia Bank Ltd (UK) National Custodian Services (AU) Nikko Cordial Securities Inc (JP) Northern Trust (US) Nucleus Financial Services (UK) OCBC (SG) ODDO (FR) OKO Bank (FI) PetercamSA (BE) PictetFunds (LU/CH) RBC Dexia (AU/ES) RBC/Dexia Fund Services (IE/SG) RBC Dexia Investors Services (LU) RBC Dexia Trust Services (HK) Robur (SE) San Paolo IMI (IT) Schroder IM (LU/GB/SG/HK) Scottish Widows (GB) SEB (LU) SEB Bank AG (DE) SEB Wealth Management (SE) SellaHolding Bancaspa (IT) Shanghai Comm & Savings Bk Ltd (TW) Shinko Securities (JP) Shuaa capital PSC (AE) Skandia (GB) Skandia Vita Italy (IT) Standard Chartered (SG/HK) Standard Life Investments Ltd (UK) State Street (LU) Svenska Handeslbanken (FI) Swissquote (CH) Taipei FubonCom Bank (TW) Taishin International Bank (TW) Trust & Custody Services Bank Ltd (JP) UBS (CH/JP) UBS Fund Services (LU) Union Invest Private Fonds (DE) United Overseas Bank (TW) Vanguard Investments (AU) Vestima+ (Clearstream) (LU) VPS (NO) Watson Wyatt (GB) Westpac Banking Corp (AU) Xchanging (DE) 4

5 Mensajes ISO para fondos: una solución completa Un paso hacia delante Uno de los desafíos claves del sector de fondos es la automatización, especialmente en la distribución internacional. En 2004, el sector de fondos encargó a SWIFT que desarrollase un conjunto de modelos para el proceso de suscripción y rescate, aprovechando los mensajes MT utilizados para las transacciones de valores (MT502, MT509 y MT515). Esta solución, creada en formato ISO 15022, fue un éxito y en 2007, más de 900 clientes utilizaron más de 22 millones de modelos de fondos. Hoy en día, casi cinco años después, es hora de dar un nuevo paso. En estrecha colaboración con el sector de fondos, SWIFT ha desarrollado un nuevo conjunto de mensajes con formato ISO Por supuesto, abarcan el flujo de transacciones, pero también las transferencias, las declaraciones, la gestión de cuentas, los informes de precios y las previsiones de efectivo. Esto permite que los nuevos mensajes, definidos y validados por expertos del sector de fondos, puedan atender todos los procesos claves en la cadena de valor. En lo que respecta los productos, los nuevos mensajes no sólo abarcan los fondos comunes de inversión clásicos, sino que también cumplen con las necesidades específicas de hedge funds y fondos de pensiones. Y desde el punto de vista geográfico, los nuevos mensajes ofrecen una auténtica respuesta a la realidad internacional del sector de distribución de fondos de hoy en día. Esto también se ilustra mediante el hecho de que más de 40 participantes claves ya utilizan los nuevos mensajes para sus operaciones diarias. El siguiente paso consiste en generalizar el uso de los nuevos mensajes de fondos. De PowerPoint a la Práctica Con vistas a facilitar esta migración, SWIFT ha establecido un Programa de Migración de Fondos (Funds Migration Programme), que comenzó a operar a principios de este año. El objetivo de este programa radica en respaldar a los clientes que migren y en controlar el avance registrado. La oferta de asistencia de SWIFT incluirá: las normas de conversión; una herramienta de referencia de conversión; una solución middleware que permitirá la transformación de los mensajes en conjuntos de datos exigidos por las aplicaciones del cliente; ofertas de servicios detalladas, procedentes de los colaboradores de SWIFT que respaldan la migración; formación facilitada. En primera lugar, los esfuerzos se centrarán en la parte receptora de la cadena de valor: los agentes de transferencias y las plataformas centrales. La comunicación será uno de los factores de éxito de esta migración. Por lo tanto, SWIFT colaborará con sus clientes comunicando intensamente sobre el esfuerzo de migración y el avance registrado. Esto se llevará a cabo mediante los canales clásicos de SWIFT, pero también mediante las asociaciones nacionales y de fondos en todo el mundo, que acepten la migración. Si desea más información sobre la migración de fondos y aquello que puede suponer para su negocio, por favor, póngase en contacto con su oficina local de SWIFT o visite la página 5

6 STP goes live! Orange, Legal & General Investment Management, STP goes live! SWIFT and Watson Wyatt combine resources to Orange, Legal & General Investment Management, implement STP 100 per cent electronic dealing for DC! SWIFT and Watson Wyatt combine resources to implement STP 100 per cent electronic dealing for DC! I buy music, pay bills, book flights and now control I buy music, my pension pay bills, online! book flights and now control my pension online!...watson Wyatt, delivering dynamic pension solutions...watson Wyatt, delivering dynamic pension solutions It was critical to Orange that their chosen administration partner for their DC pension scheme could deliver an interactive web solution enabling members to see real time fund values and make online choices. Watson Wyatt is the chosen administration partner and today all members of the Orange pension scheme, including deferred members, can use the epa web tool to complete their online transactions tions and rely on their contributions being invested on time. Talk to us about how we can transform your members administration experience. watsonwyatt.com tt.com To learn more about how Watson Wyatt can help you achieve your goals, please contact Clive Witherington on +44 (0) , solutions@watsonwyatt.com or see more online at watsonwyatt.com/solutions Watson Wyatt Limited 2007-EU-0235c

7 SHarP project Bringing new levels of automation to hedge fund transaction processing Bob Currie reports on efforts of the SWIFT Hedge Funds Harmonisation Pilot (SharP) Project to reduce operational 1 Financial Services Research October 2007 risk in processing hedge fund subscriptions and redemptions Levels of automation in the fund of hedge funds (FoHF) sector remain unacceptably low, both in terms of communicating trading instructions and in the distribution of pricing. Communication of trade orders remains heavily reliant on fax and other manual or semi-manual processes; and providers that wish to employ electronic medium to communicate hedge fund transactions continue to rely on proprietary data interfaces. Given the operational risk presented by existing procedures, it is clear that the industry urgently needs to adapt to keep pace with business expansion. As transaction volumes grow, hedge fund administrators and custodians will struggle to deliver required levels of processing efficiency, risk control and client service while reliant on existing paperdriven procedures for communicating order information. Significantly, with UCITS III we have seen the evolution of fund products that have hedge fund characteristics, but that link into the fund distribution networks developed by large multi-strategy investment houses in supporting domestic and cross-border marketing of these products. As these fund distribution networks are extended, the need for automated communication becomes paramount: this expanded distribution capability cannot function effectively on the back of fax-communicated orders and confirmations. Recognising these challenges, SWIFT has played a important role during the past 24 months in bringing together leading players in the fund of hedge fund administration and custodian space in order to prepare the way for the introduction of standardised electronic messaging to support subscription, redemptions and reconciliation. * This represents extracts from a longer article of the same name, originally published in Financial Services Research, October The full article can be accessed at Fuente: Financial Services Research 7

8 SHarP project Ian Headon Product Development, Alternative Funds, Northern Trust David Hardman Head of Relationship Management, Custodian Banks UK & Ireland, SWIFT Morgan Downey European Managing Director, LaSalle Global Fund Services Dublin has represented an obvious location for the early round of SHarP Exploratory Group meetings, given that many of the world s leading hedge fund administrators have an operational centre in the city. Although the Group is represented strongly by Dublin- and Luxembourg-based firms, David Hardman, Head of Relationship Management, Custodian Banks UK and Ireland, Securities Division at SWIFT, points out that this is very much a global initiative, with participants representing their firms hedge fund processing activities on a global basis. These are early days, and participants in the SHarP Group emphasise that its deliberations are still at an exploratory stage. The good news is that the offshore asset servicing industry has recognised the problem and is pooling its expertise in order to tackle these areas of operational risk and inefficiency, suggests Ian Headon, Product Development, Alternative Funds, Northern Trust. In the past, representations to the regulators have centred on the appointment of prime brokers, independent pricing and valuations, and other transparency- and accounting-related issues. Now the industry is making a serious commitment to addressing operational risk. There is still much work to do before the problem is resolved but these collective efforts represent an important step in the right direction. Morgan Downey, European Managing Director at Dublin-based LaSalle Global Fund Services, suggests that the processing of subscriptions and redemptions for fund of hedge funds remains one of the principal bastions of inefficiency in the financial services world. With this obstacle in its path, his team at LaSalle places considerable faith in the SHarP initiative as a driver for automation and it has been encouraged by the progress that has been made so far by the SWIFT Working Group. Through the collective experience of leading players in the industry, this group has identified where key areas of risk and inefficiency lie and it has prioritised these elements in developing initial solutions. This said, the SWIFT-led initiative will not, in the short term, fully eliminate the need for physical documentation. For example, in some jurisdictions there remains a need for a physical signature in order to give legal substance to a financial contract. With this in mind, it will be necessary in some markets to make representations to the financial regulators in order to amend legislation such that SWIFT messaging can be accepted as a binding contract. SHarP Project agenda In managing these areas of outstanding risk and inefficiency in processing hedge fund transaction flow, the SWIFT-led SHarP Project Group has elected to approach this challenge in manageable steps and to give priority to where operational risk is highest. Though we have more than 57 messages available in the ISO SWIFTnet Funds suite, we have focused in Phase One of the project on developing and testing key messages additional subscription order, redemption order, status messages, order and redemption contract notes (confirmations), and an Accounting Statement of Holdings that will support automated communication of FoHF trade instruction and confirmation, says SWIFT s Hardman. The implementation process will be simplified by the fact that leading custodians and hedge fund administrators already have the capability to send and receive SWIFT messages. Moreover, the leading players typically have both TA and custody capability and, thus, are both senders and receivers of hedge fund trade instructions. This, notes Northern Trust s Headon, will reduce the incremental build required to accommodate the SWIFTnet Funds solution, dictating that each of these providers will be working from a consistent architecture, with some measure of internal and external automation already in place through their proprietary systems. Once the SWIFT community has verified that ISO SWIFTnet Funds messages are fit for purpose as they relate to FoHF transactions, it should, says Hardman, be a relatively straightforward task in the second phase of the project to extend these messages to communicate order instructions for individual single-strategy hedge funds and therefore expand the community to private banks and wealth management platforms. By automating communication flows, this initiative will tackle a number of pain points that currently prevail under existing fax-driven arrangements. One is the lack of trade status and confirmation messages that verify that the trade instruction has been received by the TA for the target fund. This, in turn, makes it difficult for the custodian to provide effective status reporting back to the investor. A message confirmation facility is available within the SWIFT ISO fund message suite and this will enhance the quality of customer service and reporting that custodians can extend to their clients. A second pain point is the absence of a consolidated electronic statement of holdings report. Instead, the Financial Services Research October Fuente: Financial Services Research 8

9 SHarP project 3 Financial Services Research October 2007 custodian will typically receive an avalanche of faxed holdings statements from fund TAs at month end that it must then take in, consolidate and reconcile with its own internal records. Within the ISO funds message range, SWIFT supports two holdings statements a nominal statement of holdings message and a more comprehensive accounting statement of holdings which allows the sender to populate message fields detailing the NAV (price), equalisation and performance fee information, and other supporting data. The SHarP Group has provisionally agreed to extend these account holdings messages into the fund of hedge fund sphere in order to support straight-through communication of holdings information and to streamline account reconciliation and investor reporting. In short, the priority of the Group is to automate the elements that currently present major reconciliation, processing and reporting problems at the month end, comments Northern Trust s Headon. For a leading custodian that may have (for example) 5000 hedge fund assets on its database, potentially spread across leading administrators, there would be major benefit in receiving a single consolidated monthly statement from each of these administrators that can be uploaded directly into a reconciliation tool. This would mark a major advance on current arrangements where thousands of holdings statements may be communicated manually between administrator and custodian and must then be keyed into the custodian s system, consolidated and reconciled against its internal records. Initial subscriptions and additional orders The task of processing initial subscriptions into a fund of hedge fund can be a complex process, typically involving extended documentation and KYC commitments. However, when the initial documentation is in place, the task of communicating additional orders is typically more straightforward, often involving a single page of faxed information detailing account number, purchase date, price, quantity and other key trade information. The challenge of extending electronic messaging for initial subscriptions will follow in Phase 2. One prerequisite is to confirm that the leading law firms that provide legal counsel for hedge funds will agree to subscription information being communicated in electronic format. Discussions are ongoing with the Irish Funds Industry Association in Dublin and with financial regulators and industry associations in other jurisdictions regarding whether AML and KYC documentation will need to be lodged in physical form. SWIFT s Standards Group has analysed the core content of a wide range of initial subscription documents and estimates that up to 90 per cent of this initial core information could be populated within the ISO Account Opening message. Given the lack of standardisation of subscription documentation and legal contracts, it will then be necessary to add additional message fields to accommodate information that is not currently supported within the standard message template. The essential point in finalising message structure, says Donard McClean, Head of Fund Services Ireland, UBS Global Asset Management, is that all of the key requirements detailed in a physical hedge fund subscription document must be replicated fully and exactly by the SWIFT message and this is exactly what SWIFT is working towards. The project aims at full replication and nothing less than that, he says. Fund identifiers In directing attention to these priorities within the SHarP Project Group, a fundamental step is to ensure that a standardised protocol is in place to identify individual hedge funds and fund series. The Group estimates that approximately 40 per cent of hedge funds already have a security identifier, typically because they are listed on a registered stock exchange (for example in Ireland, Luxembourg, Channel Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda) or they have approached a national numbering agency directly. Consequently, it seems logical to leverage from these existing identifiers as a starting point. For those hedge funds that do not currently have an identifier, the Group has proposed that hedge fund TAs will liase with ANNA numbering agents in the primary offshore fund domiciles to request an unlisted ISIN (such that the fund will not be subject to additional regulatory scrutiny or disclosure requirements). Series funds are another challenge and discussions continue as to the most appropriate format that could be accorded by a master ISIN, with a two to four-digit identifier potentially used to identify each series sub-fund. At this stage, there are inevitably still differences between the visions held by some participants. Olivier Paeme, Senior Product Development Manager at CACEIS, notes that for series funds, the Exploratory Donard McClean Head of Fund Services Ireland, UBS Global Asset Management Fuente: Financial Services Research 9

10 SHarP project Olivier Paeme Senior Product Development Manager, CACEIS Group is reviewing potential to identify the series with an ISIN number and a structured suffix. However, in many TA applications the ISIN serves as the key code and it may demand a significant reorganisation of systems architecture to employ a suffix as series identifier. In moving the project forward, it is clear that the task of developing standardised securities identifiers is a priority to ensure that transactions can be processed accurately within an STP environment. In debating these challenges, the SHarP Project Group has been eager to ensure that (at least in these initial stages of the project) its decisions will create minimum disruption to the FoHF and target hedge fund manager. It has been keen, for example, to ensure that the need to apply for a securities identifier will not subject the hedge fund manager to additional regulatory scrutiny or disclosure requirements. Project timeline In terms of setting milestones for implementation, SWIFT has completed the creation of the new messages, based on data requirements set out by the industry, and aims to be ready for testing by TA s, fund custodians and private banks in the pilot group during Q Concurrently, SWIFT s SharP group will be involved in developing a rule book for these messages, with a view to having this work finalised by the end of Further complexities such as equalisation and side pockets have been addressed. However, the handling of limited partnership (LP)-type structures within the SWIFT ISO message environment will be considered by the Working Group in Phase 2. To support these plans, SWIFT is in close communication with Clearstream, DTCC, Euroclear and other providers of automated transaction processing platforms for investment funds in order to extend automation across the global hedge funds industry. As an active participant in the SHarP Project, David Aldrich, Managing Director at The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon), indicates that BNY Mellon remains strongly supportive of this initiative. There is a sizeable universe of private and commercial banks that are already SWIFT-enabled and that have a servicing requirement to process hedge fund transactions in significant volume on behalf of their high net-worth investor client base. Aldrich predicts that the extension of the SWIFT funds network to the hedge fund segment should bring immediate benefit in automating the order flow from these private banks and wealth management platforms consistently and reliably through utilising industry-standard messaging types. On the downside, there remains a substantial body of hedge fund administrators that do not have SWIFT capability. Barriers to entry remain low in the administration sector and the hedge fund TA network continues to expand accordingly. The result is that, like other major players, BNY Mellon is required to interface with an increasingly large number of underlying TAs that do not support electronic communication. With this in mind, Aldrich believes that the SWIFTnet Funds initiative is an important step forward, but will remain only a partial solution, providing an incremental advance rather than a communication revolution for the hedge funds industry. UBS Fund Services Donard McClean reports similarly that even when use of SWIFT messaging to communicate hedge funds orders and status reporting becomes commonplace, it is inevitable that there will still be some clients that are not SWIFT compliant. Notwithstanding, the extension of SWIFT communication will be key to supporting the future expansion of our business, helping us to mitigate operational risk and to improve the standards of reporting and client service that we can extend to our customer base, he says. Moreover, as the mutual fund and hedge fund worlds move closer together, McClean welcomes efforts by the SWIFT Exploratory Group to extend to the hedge fund arena some of the key advances that have been made in automating communication for mutual funds and it is likely that some of the current work that is being done in the hedge fund space will have applicability in the other direction. In considering the applicability of the SHarP programme across other asset classes, it is possible that some developmental benefits will emerge from the project that may be leveraged to private equity, property funds and other classes of alternative investment vehicle at a later stage. However, the immediate priority, says LaSalle GFS Morgan Downey, is to address risks attached to handling subscriptions and redemptions for FoHFs and, subsequently, single-strategy hedge funds. Private equity trading, by definition, tends to involve a relatively small number of high value transactions and these are, typically, still manageable as a manual process. Consequently, these have not been embraced in the early phases of the SHarP Group s discussions. Financial Services Research October Fuente: Financial Services Research 10

11 SWIFT CONFERENCE 39 Messaging and bottlenecks L to R: Joanna Cound, BlackRock; David Moffat IFDS; Philippe Seyll, Clearstream. A packed day at SWIFT s fifth London Conference on 12 June encompassed topics from cash product development to the Funds Processing Passport. Adam Lessing, head of European development at Morley, gave the opening keynote speech at the conference. He identified that, although volatility in the markets and outflows from the fund industry might be extreme, they are part of a longer term pattern of falls and subsequent recoveries. Lessing made it clear that the funds business has some immediate challenges, however. The industry is losing money at an unprecedented rate, he said. And, it is not being moved to other products, it is mostly going into cash. We have been there before and risk appetite will recover. But, we need to improve risk and performance analysis, and transparency. PANEL SESSION: What are the most critical industry challenges faced by our business today? CHAIR: Julian Tregoning, director, The Bank of New York Mellon PARTICIPANTS: Margaret Adams, managing director, JPMorgan; James Finch, head of liquidity sales EMEA, Barclays Global Investors; Andrew Fisher, chief executive, Towry Law; Bernard Hanratty, head of funds EMEA, Citi Lessing s calls to action were followed June 2008 TheFundBusiness Effective use of technology impacts all aspects of the funds industry, as Maggie Williams discovered at SWIFT s recent London conference Hanratty, Fisher and Finch put their by a panel session on challenges for emphasis on access to distribution. the fund management industry. Key Adams gave a service provider s topics included discussion of the perspective with the needs of clients versus JULIAN TREGONING S VIEWS need to drive down the priorities of fund costs and improve managers. Fisher of Liquidity is king in the retail marketplace. I efficiency. Adam Lessing Towry Law noted, the think the hemorrhaging of cash from the industry will go on for some time, particularly also joined in the debate industry spends too in the retail world where preservation of cash at this point, with a long trying to explain must be the big concern. Mutual funds must rather different competitive be simple, transparent and good value. For viewpoint. We need to advantage when that s institutional investors, the most important develop suitable not the client priority. consideration is liability management, and again, liquidity is king. products and explain Finch concurred that: We are set for a period of low growth, Increased possibly stagnation and volatility. Is the credit them clearly to customers. transparency is a real crunch over? No, there are still some shocks to come. But by this time next year the worst challenge, as is the will be behind us. Consumers on the high strength of the PANEL: How can better street will still be suffering, but, touch wood, underlying fund use be made of cash there will be some light at the end of the managers. across the funds tunnel. Leveraging has been the Adams of JP industry? scourge of the last few years Morgan highlighted CHAIR: Bill Wrest, and investors need to the need to look at senior vice president, understand the risks offshoring and Bank of America involved. Transparency technology, with cost should mean products that PARTICIPANTS: people can understand, but reduction as a major Jonathan Butterfield, challenge. Like Finch, there s also a need for marketing & education caveat she drew attention to emptor must play a communication, CLS greater transparency Bank; Joanna Cound, part. as more complex head of European cash Julian Tregoning, director, BNY Mellon vehicles gain in sales, BlackRock; David popularity. Global distribution, Moffat, IFDS; Philippe Seyll, head of selling over multiple timezones and investment fund services, reducing cost, as well as introducing Clearstream continuous STP (Straight Through There were some strong words from Processing) are other concerns. this panel. Moffat of IFDS stated: Cash Tregoning asked everyone on the settlement in the UK is one of the least panel what they considered to be the efficient parts of the industry. most critical industry challenge. However, cash accounts have seen w w w. t h e f u n d b u s i n e s s. c o m Fuente: The Fund Business 11

12 40 SWIFT CONFERENCE significant take-up recently, as Cound of BlackRock explained: We ve seen an explosion in AAA-rated funds since last June the industry is up 55%. Cound also identified the need for better clarification of funds for investors. Triple-A funds will continue to attract interest, but a lot of it should be transitory. We need to educate investors on that. The effect of double globalisation challenged Seyll. We are dealing with distributors from more countries, and funds domiciled in more places. The only way forward is to mimic what has been done in the equity and bond worlds. We should not wait for the regulator to impose solutions, we need to come up with our own. A lack of commitment within the fund management industry to address these considerations frustrated Moffat. When the markets are buoyant, no-one has the time or inclination to look at the plumbing. When markets are poor, no-one wants to put their hand in their pocket to rebuild it, he said. Butterfield also chastised the industry for its lethargy. I find it shattering that STP in the fund management world means Straight to Paper, he sighed. Operational expense is holding back product development. PANEL: Saving the wealth: making the pensions industry more efficient CHAIR: Matthew Craig, journalist PARTICIPANTS: Edward Glyn, director funds, SWIFT; Ian Richards, head of DC strategy & goverance, Legal & General; Richard Parkin, director, DC Development, Fidelity; Daron Pearce, Bank of New York Mellon Ian Richards of L&G started this panel by drawing attention to the challenges facing the pensions world both at the industry and community level. Personal accounts could kill off employer-sponsored schemes, he said. They reduce the baggage that comes with running a pension scheme in six years, over 400 pieces of pensions legislation have been introduced! Richards was also quick to disprove the suggestion that the pensions industry is inefficient due to the limited spread of automation. The whole industry has been low volume/high value in the past and full automation has not been necessary. But with the increase in Defined Contribution schemes, there is a move towards a low value/high volume model, and we now need efficiencies to build and handle that. All agreed that operational changes across the pensions industry, based around the ISO messaging standard, are a necessity. Glyn of SWIFT concluded the session, saying: Efficiency in corporate pensions has improved significantly over the last 18 months. We have standards and better market practice, and with collaboration, we can improve the industry as a whole. PANEL: Reducing the risk in hedge fund administration looking towards the future CHAIR: Bob Currie, Financial Services Research PARTICIPANTS: Donard McClean, head of fund services Ireland, UBS GAM; Drew Douglas, head of alternative fund services, HSBC AFS; Morgan Downey, European director, La Salle Global Trust Services The industry is being swamped with paper, said Bob Currie at the start of this session. Proprietary interfaces and the use of faxes for subscription and redemption are impacting operational efficiency and risk. The debate looked at improving efficiency in the fund of funds and hedge fund worlds and how the new SharP (SWIFT Hedge Funds Harmonisation Project) will address automation of the time consuming, manual communication chain between custodians and TAs. DONARD MCCLEAN EXPLAINS THE LATEST PLANS FOR SHARP The SharP (SWIFT Hedge Funds Harmonisation Project) initiative has been centred in Dublin. By capturing administrators based there we also capture their sister organisations elsewhere in Europe. Many companies are involved, but we have a working group of six custodian organisations, including UBS, Fortis, Citco and HSBC, who will account for around 80% of trading. At the moment everyone has their own solution for subscription and redemption, but the SWIFT initative is much broader. Phase One, which addresses subsequent (as distinct from initial) trades, will launch in November Live testing begins then, and companies can join the platform although we still need buy-in from lawyers and the regulator. Phase Two won t wait for everyone to be on Phase One, and we accept that some custodians will wait until the full system is live before joining us. There will come a point, however, when it will be a competitive disadvantage not to be using SWIFT or a similar messaging newtork as a trading tool for fund of funds. Over time, there will be downward pressure on costs because of improved efficiencies and the absence of proprietary systems. It will change the landscape for fund of funds. Donard McClean head of fund services Ireland UBS GAM SharP aims to use SWIFT messaging for subscriptions, redemptions and reconciliations of account holdings. Downey of LaSalle said, Many organisations have tried to tackle these processes and handle the associated risks by building inhouse solutions. Those are fragmented and proprietary. McClean backed up Downey s argument: If someone from the equities world witnessed the operations of the fund of funds world, they may feel as though they had been transported back in history. All three participants gave an overview of how their own systems worked, combining a mix of some proprietary automation and paper forms. One of SharP s objectives is to reduce the current month-end bottleneck for trades being processed by a Transfer Agent. At the moment, fund of funds month-end is pandemonium, said Douglas. For its first phase, SharP will address automation of secondary trades. By addressing secondary trades, you are tackling a lot of the problems, even though it won t cure everything at once, he explained. TFB SWIFT AND THE FPP Alongside the panel debates, the conference included sessions on new SWIFT solutions supporting many of the initiatives discussed in the main auditorium. Among the many ideas on show were plans for SWIFT to develop a central database for Funds Processing Passports (FPP). This is currently at the conceptual stage and industry support is still being sought. Sven Bossu of SWIFT said: We believe that SWIFT has the capabilities to provide one central database, and as a noncommercial organisation we can keep costs low. SWIFT has plans for mid-2009 implementation, if industry support is available. w w w. t h e f u n d b u s i n e s s. c o m TheFundBusiness June 2008 Fuente: The Fund Business 12

13 Primeras entidades que comienzan a operar con SWIFT en el tercer trimestre Un sistema de liquidación de operaciones entre fondos gestionados sin necesidad de papel pronto será realidad. Esto será posible después de implantar un proyecto piloto de estándares de mensajería SWIFT, con el que cinco de los ocho participantes piloto han prometido comenzar a operar en el tercer trimestre de este año. El proyecto piloto, que comenzó en agosto de 2007, pretende demostrar el potencial de valor añadido que representa la adopción del conjunto de mensajes de fondos gestionados de SWIFT, conocido como SWIFTNet, e identificar los cambios de backoffice necesarios para implantarlos. La prueba también sirvió para que las entidades se familiarizasen con los estándares de mensajes ISO 20022/SWIFT, y validasen la afirmación de la empresa propiedad del sector que esta podía administrar las comunicaciones externas entre las contrapartes de fondos gestionados al por mayor. Entre el 20 de agosto y el 20 de septiembre, un total de 549 mensajes se enviaron mediante el SWIFTNet Funds Test/Pilot service. De los ocho participantes piloto, incluidas gestoras de fondos, operadores de wrap, custodios y registros, todos informaron que la experiencia había sido útil. Cinco entidades: Ausmaq, National Custodian Services, HSBC Securities Services, Vanguard Investments y Barclays Global Investors, han afirmado que tienen previsto iniciar un proyecto interno para implementar el sistema de comunicaciones automatizadas, y las tres restantes esperarán a ver los resultados antes de lanzarse. Otros cinco que no participaron en un principio, Macquarie Wrap, RBC Dexia, Asteron, Oasis e ING, se inscribieron posteriormente. Tim Hamer, director comercial de SWIFT, dijo que está previsto que las entidades vayan integrándolo en torno al tercer cuatrimestre de este año. La lista de entidades que utilizan los mensajes de SWIFT posiblemente crecerá con gran rapidez, según indica Hamer, ya que los argumentos para implementar el sistema son cada vez mayores a medida que se incorporan nuevas contrapartes. En un estudio llevado a cabo después del proyecto piloto, los cinco participantes que habían previsto adoptar el sistema afirmaron que recomiendan a sus contrapartes principales que también lo hagan. En una carta enviada a sus gestoras de fondos, Macquarie Wrap ya indicó que ofrecería descuentos a cualquier gestor que adoptase las normas de mensajería de SWIFT. Según indica Hamer de SWIFT, Macquarie está avanzando rápidamente en la implementación y está alentando a sus contrapartes a unirse a ellos en la iniciativa de automatización de estos flujos. En Macquarie quieren que se les considere como un líder, y para ellos las ventajas que se derivan de la transición a un sistema sin papeles son obvias, afirma. La automatización de las pedidos de compra/venta tiene un potencial de reducción de costes en las transacciones de fondos gestionados de 20 $ a 20 céntimos, y permitirá reducir el procesamiento de horas a segundos, por lo que las entidades podrán aumentar drásticamente el número de pedidos que pueden procesar sin tener que ampliar sus plantillas. Hamer indica que en Hong Kong, la velocidad cada vez mayor de procesamiento ya ha permitido que la división de distribución de fondos de Citigroup pueda ampliar sus plazos para que los solicitantes de fondos gestionados reciban el precio de cierre de ese día hacia las cuatro, ya bien entrada la tarde. Sin embargo, pensamos que la mayor ventaja de los mensajes SWIFT será la reducción de errores. Tal y como señala, Hemos estimado que entre el 2 y el 3% de los faxes se perdían. Algunos proveedores nos han dicho que la cifra real es probablemente 4 ó 5 veces mayor a lo estimado. La automatización hace que el índice de errores se aproxime a cero, por lo que para las instituciones que realizan grandes transacciones, el ahorro en reclamaciones se percibirá de inmediato. Para empezar, las entidades enviarán información como solicitudes, rescates y distribuciones, utilizando el paquete actual de 18 mensajes. Hay un total de 68 tipos distintos de mensajes estándar que pueden ser utilizados. Las normas emanan de un debate sobre las prácticas de mercado que se llevó a cabo con15 instituciones para determinar los elementos esenciales de cada tipo de comunicación. Los mensajes utilizan un lenguaje de marcas ampliable (XML), permitiendo que SWIFT pueda revisar frecuentemente el contenido de los mensajes estándar, añadiendo o suprimiendo campos, en función de las necesidades. XML también tiene la ventaja de ser un formato estándar del sector, haciendo que las conexiones a SWIFT sean muy económicas mediante plataformas como BizTalk Accelerator de Microsoft. Fuente: 13

14 14

15 Póngase en contacto con nosotros y díganos en qué podemos ayudarle para que crezca su negocio de gestión de patrimonios, distribución de fondos y operaciones. Nuestro equipo internacional de fondos está a su disposición para ayudarle de inmediato. Director Internacional Global Jean Sonneville jean.sonneville@swift.com Gestión de Mercados Globales William Gourlay william.gourlay@swift.com Michele De Boe michele.deboe@swift.com Equipo de Ventas Globales Teresa Nolan teresa.nolan@swift.com Edward Glyn edward.glyn@swift.com David Hardman david.hardman@swift.com Marco Attilio marco.attilio@swift.com Eric Chua eric.chua@swift.com Tim Hamer tim.hamer@swift.com Brian Kusunoki brian.kusunoki@swift.com Tanaka Hiroshi tanaka.hiroshi@swift.com

16 Si desea más información sobre SWIFT visite swift.com Para unirse al debate de la comunidad visite la página Web de swiftcommunity.net SWIFT