When two European fund managers decided in quick succession
last autumn to pass the bulk of their administrative processing to
their global custodians, many bankers in the business of providing
securities services were plainly relieved. Here at last was
confirmation that the large sums many have invested to create
integrated solutions over and above standard clearing, settlement
and safekeeping might be about to pay off.
The service-level agreements (SLAs) signed in September between
Julius Baer International and Bank of New York (BoNY) and in
October between Scottish Widows and State Street Corp have so far
been followed by only a trickle of further deals, but many
custodian bankers reckon there are a lot more to come.
"What we are seeing globally is that investment managers are
taking a strategic look at their businesses, what their value
proposition is, looking at their core competencies that they are
getting paid for," says...
