Global Custodian Winter 2018 | Page 11

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˜ ˜ Fund administrators Ultimus Fund
Solutions and Gemini have agreed to merge
after both companies entered into deal to
be acquired by private equity firm GTCR.
The combined company, which will operate
as Ultimus Fund Solutions only, will hold
approximately $150 billion of assets under
administration, service over 840 funds, and
provide a range of middle- and back-office
services to mutual fund and alternative
investment managers.
˜ ˜ JP Morgan has extended its agreement
with Arcesium Technology to provide a
bespoke offering for fund managers and is
aiming to have all clients live on the new
platform by the end of 2019.
The custodian and fund administrator said
it has converted a ‘substantial portion’ of its
alternative investment services business to
the post-trade technology provider.
˜ ˜ Standard Chartered is exploring a crypto
custody offering after concluding there is
need for ‘trusted’ providers to enter the
digital asset space. Institutional investors
remain hesitant to participate in the crypto-
O N
T H E
M O V E
currency markets at present owing to a lack
of traditional infrastructure and established
custody offerings with activity mostly limited
to crypto-specific hedge funds and a handful
of family offices.
˜ ˜ BNP Paribas Securities Services is aiming
to implement around 100 robotic process
automation (RPA) programmes by the end of
the year.
The French-based custodian is also looking
to implement artificial intelligence for a wide
range of middle- and back-office services,
including predictive modelling for trade break
predictions, and the use of natural language
processing to better understand the content
of fax instructions from clients.
˜ ˜ The National Pension Service of Korea
(NPS), one of the world’s largest pension
funds, has outsourced its middle-office for
the first time to State Street. The mandate
also includes the re-appointment of the
Boston-based bank as its global custodian
and fund administrator for its global equity
portfolio. State Street will continue to pro-
vide these services for a further three years.
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˜ ˜ Northern Trust has made an investment
into Parilux Investment Technology, an
investment data management provider as it
looks to further its front-office capabilities.
The investment will allow Northern Trust to
gain access to Parilux’s data management
platform for institutional investor, provid-
ing data for the investment book of record
(IBOR), accounting and risk analytics for
alternative assets.
˜ ˜ Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing
(HKEX) has confirmed it is partnering with
blockchain specialist Digital Asset for a new
post-trade platform using the technology.
HKEX will trial the technology to help com-
plete post-trade allocations and processing
for northbound trades under Stock Connect
within a tight settlement window.
˜ ˜ Deutsche Bank is challenging the FinTech
community head-on with a new analytics tool
for its securities services business, allowing it
to analyse millions of lines of data daily.
Starting with the German market, followed
by a wider roll-out, the new service will go live
in November.
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