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The post-global financial crisis shift to investing in bonds and other fixed interest securities, notwithstanding record-low interest rates in most major markets, is putting increased demands on analytics to ensure investors know exactly what they’re doing. However, the usual tools for such analytics may be flawed, according to a paper by RBC Investor Services. The…

Chong Jin Leow, the head of BNY Mellon’s Asia Pacific asset servicing business, who was also appointed Singapore country executive only last year, quietly left the company in late March. BNY Mellon is tightlipped about the circumstances of his departure and any plans for the region’s future leadership. Leow, an experienced custody and securities services…

Ian Perkins, the founder of Morse Consulting and the driving force behind its expansion through Asia, has resigned from the company and sold his stake to the other partners. He will take a break and think about his next move, he said last week. “For the last six months I’d been thinking that the business…

FNZ, the investment platforms systems and administration provider, is expanding into Asia with the decision to open a Singapore office, according to the chief executive for Australia, Martin Jennings. Jennings told the Investment Operations & Custody “Best Practice” conference in Shanghai last week that the Singapore office would be opened soon following receipt of the…

The band in which the Chinese RMB is allowed to float is likely to be increased from 1 per cent to 2 per cent this year as part of the liberalization of management and internationalization of the currency, according to Dr Yuanzheng Cao of the Bank of China. In a wide-ranging speech on the future…

As back-office providers to fund managers and pension funds provide more and more services in the middle and front office areas, the question of data quality and delivery is growing in importance. Jeff Conway, the State Street asset servicing veteran, says the term “outsourcing” needs to be replaced. Addressing the IO&C conference in Shanghai last…

Pension funds, and other fiduciary investors, need to provide greater transparency as the world moves towards increased scrutiny of its savings systems, according to former academic and current managing director of JP Morgan, Benjie Fraser. Fraser, a London-based strategist at JP Morgan, told the IO&C conference that there was increased scrutiny on the pension fund…

Basel III is having ramifications through the pension fund and banking sectors of economies around the world. For the end investors, or members of pension funds, this is a good thing. For the funds themselves, this represents a new challenge. The voluntary worldwide banking code for collateral, which comes into force this year, favours retail…

Profile by Patrick Liddy* In the early middle ages a pole draped with red flags was the emblem of the barber-surgeon who was permitted to bleed customers on his premises, the pole itself a token of the wooden rod, which the client held to keep his arm steady. The red rag was changed to a…

QSuper has completed the transition of $800 million in funds of its first “cohort” of default members to an allocation of 80 per cent cash and 20 per cent more aggressive assets. It is now working on communicating with the second cohort, with a total of eight to 12 cohorts to be completed by the…

Australian-grown securities transaction and fund administration software provider GBST Holdings has signed up its first direct US-based client and is looking to significantly grow its international operations. “I would expect that in the next three to five years, revenue from international operations would exceed that of Australian operations,” chief executive officer GBST Capital Markets, Denis…

Comment by Greg Bright There are three big themes playing out this year which can all be blamed on the babyboomers: outcome-orientated investing, smart beta and DIY-style institutional platforms. Forget the MySuper and other regulatory rubbish, this is how it’s going to play out. Russell Investments’ restructure in Australia, announced last week, provides an informative…