Tadhg Young, Executive Vice President, Country Head – Ireland, State Street: Clearly, there is no easy solution to the long standing issue of delays in the fund transfer process – had it been the case that there was, the issue would have been resolved by now. Instead, many of the counterparties involved continue to find ways to address the issue, and to take steps toward a more automated and digitized process. And perhaps herein lies the issue….the multiple parties working on it, independently, rather than focussing on an industry-wide solution.

We are closely monitoring the advancements in the automation and standardisation of the asset transfer process with the aim of implementing the most up-to-date practices in our day-to-day operations. We believe that the funds industry at large would greatly benefit from more unified faster and less resource-intense fund transfer solutions that would allow to scale the business and offer a higher quality service to clients. The Calastone report gives a glimmer of hope that steps to combine the will and brain powers of the interested parties are underway and that progress is being made.

David Dillon, Director (Ireland), MJ Hudson: Delays are a frustration, which are often due to regulatory and procedural steps which are not consistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In this respect, there would appear to be a lack of enthusiasm for simplifying the process in the relevant jurisdictions. However, very often there are other factors such as tax events triggered by the conversion and obligations to investors which can be jurisdictionally specific.

Conor Joyce, Head of Transfer Agency, Ireland, IQ-EQ: Unfortunately, the length of time required to process fund transfers remains stubbornly high within the funds industry. While Straight-Through Processing (STP) percentage rates within the transfer agency process are now normally in the high 90s range, the fund transfers process remains quite manual.
The question is why this is still the case? One major factor cited by firms is the divergence in systems between counterparties, where the lack of compatibility means they often return to the ‘tried and tested’ manual solution. Another factor is that the firm on one side of the transfer may not have an automated solution in place, meaning providers with an automated solution are unable to utilize it in some instances.

There continue to be compelling reasons for firms to further automate the fund transfers process, however. The sharp focus of regulators on protecting investor rights, value for money and improving services are important factors for firms to consider when maintaining a costly manual process. There is an increased risk of errors associated with manual key entry. Additionally, issues such as the circulation of large amounts of paper instructions, additional staffing costs, missing post and environmental concerns should all accelerate the automation process over the coming years.