Calastone’s transfers participants and volumes treble over last 12 months
Calastone, the global funds transaction network, today announced that two of Australia’s largest registry businesses and their fund manager clients have connected to its network to automate the transfer of clients’ managed funds holdings across platforms.
The addition of OneVue and Mainstream, and their respective fund manager clients, trebles the number of participants benefiting from Calastone’s straight-through-processing transfers solution.
Transfers involve a series of transactions triggered when an adviser elects to move investor holdings from one platform to another. The process, which allows beneficial ownership of securities to move to a different custodian without having to be sold and repurchased through the market, has historically caused considerable cost and time for the involved parties, often requiring wet signatures and postage delays.
Since introducing the solution in early 2017, Calastone has reduced the average transfer completion time from two weeks to less than 12 hours, with the fastest recorded transfer processed in under six minutes. Over 30,000 transfers have been processed representing a network that has now grown to seven registries, six platforms and 48 fund managers.
Ross Fox, Acting Head of Australia and New Zealand at Calastone, said “The number of registered participants and volume of transfers have trebled over the last 12 months, indicative of the growing competitive pressures driving fund managers, platforms, advisory firms and custodian registries to adopt safer, faster and more transparent ways of doing business.”
“Calastone’s Transfers solution addresses a major friction point that has long frustrated industry participants due to the intensive documentation and authorisation required when an adviser initiates a single or bulk transfer to a different platform,” he said.
“Straight-through-processing allows for seamless and transparent transfers, removing the uncertainty, delays and risk inherent in manual processing of these complex transactions.”
Richard Harris-Smith, Deputy Group CEO at OneVue commented: “We are always looking to improve and optimise the experience and outcomes for our clients and their investors. The saved risks and time experienced by us and the 32 fund manager clients we’ve transitioned is an exciting indication of the value yet to be unlocked for the industry through increased automation.”
Andy Harrison, CEO of Mainstream Fund Services in Australia, added: “Our mission is to help our clients improve their efficiency and levels of automation while lowering costs. Through our partnership with Calastone, our clients on the platform see immediate benefits in the quality and speed of transactions we process on their behalf.”
Paul Hagger, Head of Custody at netwealth, which has used Calastone’s Transfers solution since its roll out, commented: “The platform space continues to embrace innovation and technology to both enhance and differentiate its value and portfolio of services, so the ability to transfer holdings across platforms is key to market efficiency and competition. By automating the highly manual and costly transfers process, Calastone is enabling greater efficiency, confidence and certainty in how the managed funds supply chain interacts.”
Fox added: “Calastone continues to work collaboratively with industry participants to automate key distribution and administration functions that support a more dynamic managed funds industry in Australia and around the globe.”
