Market watch

Expanding ETF products for European investors

Germany’s HypoVereinsbank (HVB) was out promoting Europe’s first government bond exchange-traded fund (ETF) at the Eurofunds 2003 conference in Munich this month. The new launch tracks the Eurex German government bonds index (eb.rexx). It has been named the eb.rexx Government Germany EX. The launch was swiftly followed by the listing of the iShares corporate bond ETF. HVB’s ETF comprises the 25 most liquid German government bonds on the Eurex bonds trading platform, as calculated by Eurex’s parent, Deutsche Börse. The issue is under the brand of Indexchange, HypoVereinsbank’s ETF subsidiary, which will manage the ETF entirely passively. Andreas Fehrenbach, chief executive of Indexchange, said the ETF provides investors with the easiest possible way to objectively compare the performance of their fixed income securities with their equity investments. The annual management fee is 0.15 per cent.

Bisys unveils services suite for wrap accounts New York-based back-office expert Bisys has developed a suite of services for wrap account providers and distributors. The package will include portfolio accounting and administration, billing solutions and reporting. Bisys president Bill Tomko plans to enhance the offering through strategic alliances with technology and service providers. This will enable Bisys to offer overlay portfolio management capabilities as well as imaging and workflow technologies, which facilitate straight-through processing by allowing information to be scanned rather than typed. Mr Tomko’s confidence in future growth of worldwide separately-managed account business is backed by the latest report from research firm Cerrulli Associates. It estimates assets in non-US wrap accounts will grow from E260bn to E390bn by 2007. This includes the flagship Italian fund of funds products known as GPFs (gestioni patrimonali in fondi), which represent the biggest component of the non-US wrap market, with E155bn. Cerulli says they will reach E211bn in 2007.