Global custodian BNP Paribas Securities Services is set to continue the expansion of its European depository banking network by pursuing clients in the lucrative Swiss market.
This launch allows BNP Paribas’s asset manager and asset owner clients with funds domiciled in Switzerland to benefit from the banks’ established, pan-European expertise in depositary services such as cash monitoring, oversight and safekeeping of assets, as well as from its strength and stability as part of a major global banking group.
This new venture caps of what has been a productive year for BNP Paribas, which also saw it acquire the depository banking business of Commerzbank in Germany in November 2013.
The bank is now one of the largest depository banks in Europe, with nearly €900 billion in assets under depository and a network covering 12 fund domiciles on the continent alone.
Garrick Smith, head of BNP Paribas Securities Services Switzerland, said: “This new expansion is the result of an increasing desire from our clients to consolidate their operational services, including depotbank and custody services, in Switzerland. We have already won our first depotbank mandate in the market, from one of the biggest independent fund of fund managers in Switzerland.”
The recent push to target European domiciles such as Switzerland is thought to be as a result of new legislation, which has, in turn, placed the services of companies such as BNP Paribas in greater demand.
The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, which came into effect in July 2013, requires all non-UCITS and alternative investment funds in Europe to appoint a depository bank to provide safekeeping, cash monitoring and services covering the valuation of complex products and alternative assets.
AIFMD was implemented as a direct reaction to the financial crisis, and was formulated in order to provide greater protection for investors as well as the wider global economy.
