In terms of fund accounting, Northern Trust is fast but BNP Paribas is accurate, say respondents to an FSbenchmarks fund administration survey.
Some 50 respondents from investment management firms across the UK rated their providers across core activities such as operations, reporting and pricing - of five providers, HSBC and Northern Trust stand ahead of their peers in terms of overall client satisfaction.
On the OTC derivatives side, results showed that despite headline grabbing activity related to processing these products, much work is yet to be done.
“From a European perspective, there have been industry attempts to improve efficiencies for over 20 years but the survey demonstrates that existing standards are not enough,” says Graeme Austin, chief executive at FSbenchmarks. “The trickle down of regulations from clearing to asset servicing hasn't happened yet, particularly in the OTC derivatives space. As regulators continue to focus on operational risk, one can expect this will improve.”
Generally high levels of satisfaction were scored for fund account preparation and client report generation with HSBC taking the lead and Northern Trust slightly trailing the pack, while BNP Paribas topped the list for accuracy.
The survey shows that while the speed of preparation of fund accounts by BNP Paribas may not be up with the industry norm, when they are generated, there is greater satisfaction with their accuracy than with any other provider while the reverse was true of Northern Trust.
On the operations side, HSBC and J.P. Morgan scored high in the management of failed trades.
