Asset Services FAQ
What are custody services?
Custody services are a cornerstone of the financial industry, providing safekeeping, settlement, and administration of financial instruments while ensuring regulatory compliance. These services are essential for institutional investors, asset managers, and other financial market participants, providing a secure framework to safeguard, protect and oversee assets.
Core custody services include asset safekeeping, ensuring secure storage and segregation of client assets, and trade settlement, which guarantees the accurate and timely exchange of securities and cash. Custodians also manage corporate actions processing and oversee income collection to ensure timely receipt of dividends and interests. Proxy voting services enable clients to exercise their shareholder rights effectively.
Additional services include cash processing, foreign exchange, and tax reclamation, helping clients optimize cash flows and recover withholding taxes. Custodians also provide regulatory reporting, ensuring compliance with local and international requirements while enhancing transparency and mitigating risks.
By combining advanced technology with robust risk management, custody services deliver secure, efficient, and compliant solutions, offering clients the protection and confidence that their assets are safeguarded and expertly administered.
What are fund administration services?
Fund administration services are essential for the efficient and compliant operation of investment funds, enabling asset managers to concentrate on their core strategies while ensuring seamless operations and regulatory compliance. These services encompass three fundamental pillars: fund accounting, transfer agency services, and additional complementary solutions, which together form a robust and comprehensive operational framework.
Fund accounting is the foundation of fund administration, ensuring accurate transaction recording, portfolio valuations, and cash reconciliations. A critical component of this process is net asset value (NAV) calculation, which determines the accurate value of a fund’s shares, ensuring fair pricing for subscriptions and redemptions. Additionally, it covers financial and regulatory reporting, such as preparing financial statements, regulatory filings, and ensuring compliance with accounting standards. Fund administrators also facilitate audit coordination to support efficient and accurate audits.
Transfer agency (TA) services are dedicated to managing investor-related activities. These include investor onboarding with KYC/AML checks, processing subscriptions, redemptions, and transfers, maintaining shareholder registers, and managing dividend and distribution payments.
Additional complementary services enhance the fund administration offering. These include tax reporting, such as investor tax statements, FATCA/CRS compliance, and withholding tax reclaims, as well as performance measurement and analytics, which deliver valuable insights into fund performance, risk metrics, and benchmarking.
What is fund governance?
Fund governance refers to the comprehensive framework of processes, policies, and oversight mechanisms established to ensure that investment funds are managed in the best interests of investors while fully complying with applicable regulatory requirements. This framework provides a solid foundation for accountability, transparency, and compliance, enhancing investor confidence and preserving fund integrity.
The core components of fund governance include portfolio management oversight, robust risk management frameworks, efficient fund administration processes, effective regulatory compliance measures, and the supervision of delegated functions such as distribution and investment management. It also involves implementing internal controls, monitoring service providers, and ensuring alignment with the fund’s investment strategy, objectives, and risk profile.
Additional responsibilities encompass valuation oversight, compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) regulations, and conflict of interest management. Governance frameworks also address the establishment of sound remuneration policies and ensure proper reporting to investors and regulators. Management companies and AIFMs play a critical role in conducting due diligence on third-party service providers and maintaining high standards of corporate governance.
By fostering transparency, accountability, and compliance, fund governance ensures the effective operation of investment funds, protects the interests of investors, and meets evolving regulatory obligations.
