In the world of asset servicing, the transfer agent (TA) plays a key role that now extends far beyond recordkeeping and settlement agent services. Handling such a broad range of fund types and a plethora of investment rules, all within a highly-complex distribution chain, the TA provides essential support to fund promoters who distribute their funds around the world.
While TA services can sometimes be viewed as industrialised processes, CACEIS considers effective cross-border fund distribution support an essential ingredient in the successful commercialisation of a fund. Over the past 30 years, CACEIS has developed extensive expertise in handling the needs of Ucits, AIFM and ETF structures, providing high value services for promoters of sophisticated funds that require savvy professionals and flexible technology platforms. With the recent acquisition of RBC’s European asset servicing activities, CACEIS has further strengthened its fund distribution support offer, combining the expertise of both companies to deliver best-in-class services to demanding fund managers.
CACEIS is a market leader in European asset servicing, and ranks among the premier players worldwide. In Luxembourg, Europe’s largest fund centre, CACEIS is the second ranking transfer agent(1). “We leverage our international network of local offices to provide cross-border distribution services from 13 countries, giving both clients and investors the proximity of service that sets CACEIS apart. CACEIS’ ‘Fund Distribution Services’ centre of excellence, which regroups all the TA and cross-border distribution services, handles over €3.4tn in assets under administration and processes some 32 million transactions annually”, comments Christelle Reichart,
For CACEIS, seamless investor on-boarding is the most critical aspect of the fund distribution service as it is a key touch-point in the sales process. “Get it wrong and our clients face a major reputation risk that could also cause them to lose potential investors. Investors want the process to involve minimum hassle so we have designed very straight-forward processes. We have digitised the KYC documentation submission and updating process through our KYC360 platform, and also digitised the subscription process with our Teepi platform. Our platforms and online solutions used by fund promoter clients and their investors during the on-boarding process fulfil all regulatory requirements, and remove much of the administrative burden linked to the KYC, subscription, and investment monitoring processes. CACEIS continues to invest in its online platforms to provide additional services and an enhanced client and investor experience” adds Christelle.
Behind the simple user-facing front-end of the platforms, many elements such as investment cut-offs, minimum subscriptions and investor profiles must be verified to ensure that they comply with rules and regulations, that subscriptions and redemptions are made with the correct value date, that information for liquidity management is accurate, and finally that each investor is treated fairly.
Fund promoters rely on our efficient distribution support tools and benefit from our technical expertise in areas including international legal and regulatory matters, Ucits registration abroad, local paying agent services, distributor selection, and automated processes.
Through our enhanced TA service, fund promoters can access customisable reporting that scales up to suit their growing business as well as process automation to compile and disseminate bespoke reports. Fund promoters also benefit from our pre-existing interfaces with a wide range of distribution channels across 110 countries. These efficient interfaces with leading fund distribution platforms enable us to reach a straight through processing (STP) rate of around 98%.
Fund promoters have a range of oversight obligations for outsourced operational activities. To assist with fulfilling these obligations, we are developing a series of tools such as self-service data delivery and analytics solutions that are available to clients via the OLIS platform.
"As with many of our technology projects, we will work in close collaboration with fund promoters (co-creation) to develop products and services that reduce distribution costs while raising the overall quality of the client and the investor experience” concludes Christelle.
(1) According to the 30th Monterey Fund Report
