Henry Toy, managing director of SS&C Canada, talks to Jenna Lomax about what the technology giant has in store for 2022 and why increasing numbers of Canadian and international fund administrators are looking to SS&C Canada to manage their outsourcing needs
How did SS&C Canada’s business and operation models fare day-to-day last year, with the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic?
2021 was a successful year for our Canadian business, despite the ongoing pandemic. It has been pretty much business as usual throughout the last two years.
I would say that we were very well equipped when the unprecedented pandemic hit.
Part of our business model in Canada and globally has been to prepare business continuity plans; many of our staff already had the ability to work from home anyway. So it was a very smooth transition to that model, because we had done that before, and have been doing so for the best part of two years now.
Last year, SeaFort Capital, a Nova Scotia-based private equity firm, selected SS&C’s Technology Holdings fund administration solution to support its fund operations.
Since the announcement, the mandate has received support through continued fundraising and the finalising of the investor commitments, as well as the fund launching.
In addition to SeaFort, SS&C onboarded numerous other private equity funds, including supporting the launch of Maverix Private Equity.
Maverix uses SS&C GlobeOp’s full suite of private capital fund services to support the Maverix Growth Equity Fund, including its fund accounting, investor services, reporting and data analytics. Our Toronto team oversees services for the fund.
How do SS&C’s fund administration offerings differ to others — especially in the Canadian market?
Within the Canadian market, SS&C offers a lot of expertise across both the limited partners and general partners space, in addition to unitised funds; we are equally as strong servicing those types of structures, whether they are just Canadian-domiciled, or in an international domicile.
Our presence and experience in Canada has helped us to support most types of managers, whether they are new managers, existing managers, or managers with more niche needs.
Canada is not at the same acceptance level for fund administration outsourcing for private equity or venture capital funds as the European market, or the US market even, but I am certain it is going to catch up.
It is at the forefront of most Canadian managers’ minds to consider outsourcing, particularly when they may not have previously done so in the past, and it is on everyone’s radar to think about finding the right match for their fund needs.
What requests have been made by your clients in recent months, in terms of reconciliation software?
There is more of a focus on the private equity managers; more frequently, managers are asking us to be able to consume and maintain unstructured data — consume it and then reconcile it. This data goes beyond the traditional accounting type of data.
Managers get information from their investments which usually comes in what can be described as non-standard forms.
We have been able to utilise artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help support consuming and normalising that data efficiently and accurately, whether it comes in a PDF format, Word document, or an email. All of those formats we can work into our systems.
Industry-wide, the use of AI technology is picking up momentum in its adoption which helps streamline a lot of our processes.
In turn, it helps our clients with timely turnaround and accuracy of said turnaround.
SS&C has a strong presence in the post-trade space. What developments has SS&C Canada been working on in post-trade through 2021?
We maintain our own systems and our own technology platforms, which allows us to constantly and annually upgrade our technologies to support our clients as different needs come about — particularly regulatory-type needs where additional regulatory reporting requirements come into play.
We have designed our platforms to specifically help support those clients.
From your experience, what have been the toughest hurdles, or opportunities, your clients have encountered in the regulation space this year — from both a Canadian and US perspective?
From a regulatory perspective, being able to support fund structures that have competing reporting requirements.
For example, Canadian and US tax have different tax compliance reporting methodologies that have increased complexities and opportunities for our clients. This challenges us at SS&C to be able to support their needs and support them cost effectively.
Our ability to support that seamlessly has been a challenge, but we have been able to support our clients.
Outside of Canada and the US we have clients that are in jurisdictions that have their own nuances that we are also able to support.
What can we expect from SS&C Canada in 2022?
In 2022 we will be absorbing and expanding our pipeline, making sure it is still very active with managers that are looking to expand their business. There may be others out there who want to outsource their business but may not have been outsourcing to date.
During the first few months of 2022 in particular, we will be very active in Canada!
