According to global study by Aite Group and SunGard, asset managers and asset servicers are struggling to manage pressure on the middle and back office operations.
As business diversification into new products, instruments and territories and increasing regulation continues to transform the industry, firms are challenged to achieve operational effectiveness while meeting new demands on data, risk management and reporting.
The study shows a split has emerged across the industry between approaches to compliance and long-term strategic improvements to data management, with 62 percent of firms asking for “better support for data aggregation” over the next 12-18 months.
Denise Valentine, senior analyst at Aite Group, says: “As the details of regulation continue to be fleshed out and new requirements take effect, the resources of most asset managers and servicers are still consumed by compliance.”
“But many firms who put technology purchases on hold during the financial crisis are now resuming enhancements to their fund accounting systems and associated middle- and back-office solutions, with the desire to become more efficient, automated, accurate and service-oriented.”
“Given the many changes to market and industry infrastructure in recent years, it is hardly surprising that organizations are still grappling with core operational issues. The improvement of efficiency and automation is an on going process that, as challenges continue and new lessons are learned, will need to constantly evolve.”
Doug Morgan, president of SunGard’s institutional asset management business, adds: “This research finds that tackling this complexity requires a new approach to data management for asset managers and servicers.”
“Data is the lifeblood of fund administration processes and needs to be both accurate and readily available. Yet, as this research also shows, it is all too often generated by multiple, disparate systems. By integrating their operations to create a single, robust ecosystem, asset managers and servicers can make more meaningful, efficient use of data.”
“In turn, this will allow them to ease the mounting pressure on their operations – putting them in a stronger position to manage the forces of a global, diversified business model to become operationally more effective.”
The findings are based on a survey of 58 senior executives at institutional asset management and asset servicing firms across North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific.
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