Sibos conference: back-office news
T+1 talks revived
Stephan Zimmermann, head of operations at UBS and Swift board member, has predicted moves towards trade and settlement in a single day (T+1) will again gather momentum, writes Roxane McMeeken from Singapore.
“If a trade takes three days, that’s exposure to risk over three days,” said Mr Zimmermann, speaking at Swift’s annual financial services forum, Sibos. “Risk is greatly reduced if it can be done over one day. We have achieved T+1 in many local markets, but we have to decrease inefficiencies on a global scale.” He argued that economic recovery has put T+1 back on the agenda since the collapse of industry initiatives.
But fund managers are reluctant to foot the bill. Ian Bessarabia, business manager, straight-through processing at RMB Asset Management, said: “We discussed internally reducing down from T+5 to T+3 and we found it wouldn’t pay.”
NT eyes family offices in Europe
Northern Trust’s securities services division has integrated wealth management and custody in a bid to capture business from Europe’s family offices.
The resulting securities services package – brainchild of Steven Potter’s international business unit – will give clients access to multi-manager and third party products. Wealth management was previously the domain of the group’s asset management arm.
Northern has already poached the Bank of New York’s Luxembourg chief Ian Baillie to run a new fund services office from the Grand Duchy in a move prompted by demands from a major client. The firm will announce several back-office outsourcing deals within the next 12 months.
Swift unveils new messaging service
Swift has introduced a messaging format for the fund distribution industry, aiming to reduce operational costs, slash operational risk and improve customer service with a single standard for domestic and cross-border transactions.
New XML-based messages, designed exclusively for mutual funds, are being piloted and will be rolled out between Q3 2004 and 2005. Banca Intesa, Bank of Ireland Securities Services, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Citco Bank and Unicredito Italiano are among initial users.
