Northern Trust has launched a machine learning module within its Front Office Solutions platform in an effort to improve the efficiency and transparency of alternative asset servicing.
The machine learning capabilities will provide asset allocators with enhanced oversight of their research process.
This is particularly important for asset allocators for endowments, foundations, family offices and other institutions, who receive upwards of thousands of documents each month that are manually filed for investment manager research purposes.
The new feature will leverage knowledge of a user’s previous behaviour to flag research management files with “intelligently-suggested attributes”. These will then be uploaded to Northern Trust’s Front Office Solutions structure, an integrated, cloud-based service and data platform.
Furthermore, the tool will be tailored by each individual asset allocator to ensure it fully meets their unique needs, with categories based on historical activity as well as real-time learning.
This is the latest launch in Northern Trust’s alternative asset digitisation initiative, which previously saw the implementation of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud technology, to simplify data extraction capabilities in asset servicing.
Melanie Pickett, head of Northern Trust Front Office Solutions, explains: “Front Office Solutions embraces innovative technologies like machine learning to make investment teams more productive by providing faster access to the information they need to make portfolio decisions.”
“The new tagging feature is an important step toward our ultimate goal of a fully-automated document management workflow for alternative assets, which will improve efficiency and transparency.”
