What initial challenges did the COVID-19 pandemic bring for transfer agencies, particularly in the early days of the first lockdown, and to what degree has the pandemic changed a transfer agent’s priorities?
It was absolutely crucial that the financial services sector, including transfer agency, was able to continue to interact with investors and manage investor accounts without interruption from day one of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
At Link Group, we reacted quickly to enable approximately 90 per cent of our people to work remotely, with all the procedural, technical and service implications implemented within a matter of days.
This allowed us to continue to seamlessly provide those services to our clients and their investors.
As an industry, we made procedural changes, which supported the new working environment. Those changes have endured today, helping with the interaction and support of our clients and their end investors.
Encouraging and helping investors to go online is another area that we have increasingly focused on over the past two years. And while that is not appropriate for everyone, we have seen a marked increase in the take-up from investors and advisors. This has allowed interactions to take place in a manner appropriate to the investor and advisor needs, but also importantly faster and more dynamic than ever before. Online access has also opened immediate access to data real-time, which has improved the customer journey and the advisor servicing protocols.
Treating customers fairly and ensuring we support vulnerable customers is at the forefront of our focus; it is critical for any organisation to recognise vulnerable customers, and ensure they are supported in the best way possible.
Many of our interactions take place over the telephone and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people have increasingly utilised telephone and digital methods of communication.
Being thoughtful and considerate of customer circumstances remains more vital than ever to truly looking after customers when they reach out to us.
Do you think the digitisation of data is where it needs to be for the best levels of data efficiency from a transfer agent’s perspective? What has been your experience?
Levels of data efficiency have dramatically improved over the past few years, especially for our industry — the digital agenda has been forced to accelerate since the first lockdown in March 2020. But there is always room for improvement for all of us, and at Link Group we strive to be leaders in that technology-led transfer agency space.
However, we always have the underlying foundation of great customer service and an exceptional team of talented individuals who care about our clients, and importantly their investors. But technology is a key element that we continue to focus on to complement and enhance our service proposition.
By way of example, back in 2015, we partnered with Prudential, a savings and investment business that has been around for 170 years. We worked with them to launch an ISA that utilises the hugely successful Pru fund, with over £6 billion assets under management within the ISA wrapper, predominantly sold as advised business through independent financial adviser (IFA) networks.
But during 2019/20, we developed a digital capability for those ISA applications that used to be a paper application form with a cheque stapled to it. Now they are completed online and automatically submitted and processed with various electronic payment methods available to them.
This solution offers the functionality that gives the end investor and the financial advisor greater visibility and control over their holdings. It is accessible 24/7 with real-time data always available — with valuations, transactional information and case tracking so that the end investor and IFA can see exactly what is going on, which materially enhances the overall experience.
But it doesn’t stop there! We continue to develop not only that functionality, but other digital access points for investors IFAs, institutions and our clients.
Change never stops and it is our role to ensure we keep pace not only with technology but also investor needs and wants.
Link Group offers administration solutions across the globe. What are the major regional differences in terms of clients’ expectations or transfer agency offerings within the digital space? To what extent do clients’ demands depend on the jurisdiction region?
We support a range of traditional and alternative funds in the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Australia — all sharing the same goal to connect people with their assets safely, securely and responsibly. We provide transfer agency offerings or admin for seven out of the top 10 global asset managers.
Globally, we help our clients and partners respond to new and changing regulations. In addition, we support them with their governance, oversight and administration.
Our fundamental goals are the same irrespective of jurisdiction. Though there are slight differences in approach, we try to apply the global focus of Link Group with local expertise of the regulations and requirements.
Our Australian registry services aim to support investment managers with increased distribution, and greater flexibility via those channels — many of which are digital. We aim to simplify operations and those interactions, to make those connections simpler and more straightforward. Like the UK, our Australian operations offer enhanced data analytics to meet those needs of both our clients as fund managers, and also their end investors.
Around the globe, we work with a company called Empirics — Link Group’s data solutions experts. Empirics specialises in building integrated data platforms and tailored analytic solutions for clients.
That is about really understanding their client base — how they are selling, and making sure that those funds are being targeted at the right people — because there is a huge amount of data available and sharing that back to the fund managers is a real benefit and value-add that we can provide.
We think we remain ahead of the curve on digital and customer experience against the regulatory backdrop, while responding and anticipating client demands. But make no mistake; this space is continually changing, and we have to be on our best game to make sure that we continue to innovate and evolve.
Link Group acquired Casa4Funds SA last August. How is this new venture going, and what else can we expect from Link Group’s offering within the fund space in Luxembourg?
The acquisition has gone incredibly well and provides additional scale for us in Luxembourg. This deal also provides access to Casa4Funds experience across traditional and alternative asset classes — including private equity, real estate, infrastructure and debt — that add value to our business. Link Group is now leveraging those combined strengths, experiences, capabilities and expertise of its existing operations in Luxembourg, Ireland and the UK, as well as Australia.
Casa4Funds offers market-leading services for fund managers and financial institutions. It really does round off our global presence in those key marketplaces.
Looking to the future, what do you think will be the main areas of focus for the transfer agency sector over the next 12 to 18 months? What is Link Group working on in this space?
Technology plays a huge role in how we connect people with their assets. This will continue to evolve over the coming years. At the same time, Link Group continues to adapt and evolve with it.
Technology is fast moving, and it is our responsibility at Link Group to ensure we remain at the forefront of that technological innovation. While we work independently, we also work with our industry peers to achieve improved outcomes for investors.
We provide thought leadership and experience to challenge the status quo — to be really inquisitive of new technology, and service enhancements. Ultimately, the goal is to improve customer outcomes. A big part of that is gathering like-minded individuals from within the industry to debate and analyse how we can improve — to leverage that industry knowledge, expertise, and importantly, opinions around discussions on particular themes, such as the betterment of customer experience, technology enhancements and evolving anti-money laundering practices and industry collaboration.
Link Group look to work with industry colleagues and clients in 2022 when we will produce a series of thought leadership papers that will be available to everyone. Our aim is to really open the debate, challenge that status quo, and try to evaluate where we can drive this industry.
← Previous interview
The Value Exchange
Barnaby Nelson
Next interview →
RBC I&TS
Ronan Doyle
Image: Link Group 
