News

(Pictured: Nick Frolich) The Avaloq technology group, which is building the new BT Wrap platform, has strengthened its senior management following the departure of country head Iain Dunstan last month. Avaloq, a global company, announced last week the recruitment of Nick Frolich and Mani Kastellas, both well known in the Australian financial services systems sector. Frolich…

 (Pictured: Dan Madhavan) Australia is putting into action the grand plans hatched last year by the G8 countries, led by the UK, to foster impact investing with the recruitment of an experienced financial services executive as the first CEO of Impact Investing Australia. One of the not-for-profit organisation’s early goals is to provide the framework for…

(Pictured: Gavin Walker) The New Zealand Superannuation Fund, which regularly rates as the most, or among the most, transparent sovereign wealth fund in the various global studies, has published an independent review of its board and management, complete with a detailed response from the fund. The areas of disagreement are illuminating. The review, conducted by the…

 (Pictured: Michael Leibrock) Cyber risk has now swamped new regulatory hurdles and the possibility of another US recession as the greatest risk facing global financial institutions, according to the latest risk survey by DTCC, the industry-owned post-trade financial infrastructure company. In the wake of several recent high-profile cyber attacks on major sectors of the global economy, starting…

 (Pictured: Gian Pandit) They used to be called ‘swing mandates’. Now they are ‘unconstrained’ and, usually, concentrated. AMP Capital has won another $175 million for its concentrated Australian equities strategy from Nikko Asset Management’s multi-manager portfolio. The win takes the portfolio managed by Gian Pandit, who launched the strategy when he joined AMP in late 2011,…

(Pictured: Peter Baker)   Mercer is having another go at rebooting its Mercer Sentinel business with the surprising recruitment of Peter Baker, the head of securities services in Australia and New Zealand for BNP Paribas. The investment operations, custody consulting and transitions management subsidiary of Mercer has been without a permanent head for the past three…

 (Pictured: Tim Haywood) Alternative fixed interest strategies have been coming into their own over the past couple of years, notwithstanding a pick-up in yields earlier this year. The issue is how to differentiate between those strategies. Tim Haywood, investment director and business unit head for fixed income at GAM (Global Asset Management) says that many people…

(Pictured: Scott Donald) With more than 200 big APRA-regulated super funds – both not-for-profit and commercial – diversity would appear to be another line of defence for the superannuation industry in the event of an unexpected shock. But new research has questioned the nature of that ‘diversity’ and the adequacy of regulatory engagement across the whole…

(Pictured: Susan Thorp) The average SMSF member is likely to be less “highly numerate” than the average member of a big super fund, but more financially numerate and more knowledgeable of the rules surrounding super. The SMSF trustee is also likely to be more trusting of financial services professionals, perhaps to the point of naivety. These…

 (Pictured: Paul Woolley) The study of capital market dysfunctionality, which former fund manager Paul Woolley embarked on in 2007, investing £5 million (A$9.25 million) of his own money to establish three study centres around the world, is turning out to be a unified body of theory. Woolley addressed the eighth annual conference organized by University of…

 (Pictured: Bruce Murphy) Bruce Murphy, managing director responsible for the Australian funds management business of BNY Mellon, is to leave that position to take up a senior role at one of the firm’s affiliate managers, Insight Pareto. A search is underway to fill the job. Murphy has been in the current role for nearly five years….

 (Pictured: David Chaplin) The NZ$21.4 billion (A$19.3 billion) KiwiSaver Scheme, which is shared between 35 banks, managers and other service providers, has seen an uptick in investor switching in the past year, with the two Australian-owned banks, ANZ and BNZ (owned by NAB), winning much of the inflows. The annual study of the market, produced by…