Fundamentals

News 14 May 2012

Mobile Banking: Netik launches vMobile for secure data delivery

Netik, a global provider of information management to the securities industry, announced the launch of its vMobile technology for Apple iPad, Android, including Samsung Galaxy and Blackberry Playbook devices. Robert Miller, CTO Netik, says “The vMobile innovation puts business users in the driver seat enabling them to dynamically create and entitle rich mobile applications to serve clients, executives and operations teams. HTML5 represents the next generation of web and mobile technologies and, unlike traditional iOS, Android or Blackberry apps, is easily synchronized with current information security web policy.“

News 11 May 2012
Hedge fund flows advance slightly in May

Hedge fund flows as measured by the GlobeOp Capital Movement Index advanced 1.24% in May. “May produced another month of positive net flows into hedge funds,” said Hans Hufschmid, chief executive officer, GlobeOp Financial Services. “Gross inflows and outflows were moderate.” The Index represents the monthly net of hedge fund subscriptions and redemptions administered by GlobeOp. This monthly net is divided by the total assets under administration (AuA) for fund administration clients. Cumulatively, the Capital Movement Index for May 2012 stands at 146.10 points, an increase of 1.24 points over April 2012. The Index has advanced 13.47 points over the past 12 months. The next publication date is June 14, 2012.
News 07 May 2012
CACEIS becomes the global Asset Servicing provider for Neuflize OBC Investissements and Neuflize Private Assets

Neuflize OBC Investissements and Neuflize Private Assets, the investment management arms of the Neuflize OBC Group, have selected CACEIS's proposal to act as administrative and accounting manager of their French mutual funds and custodian of mandates. The business transfer concerns some 80 mutual funds and mandates representing total assets of €12 billion.
News 04 May 2012
Employers more engaged with their pension schemes and taking primary responsibility for de-risking

Employers are becoming more engaged with the management of their pension schemes and increasingly taking primary responsibility for de-risking, according to research1 from MetLife Assurance Limited (“MetLife Assurance”). The study shows 61% of companies surveyed with turnover of £1m+ accept primary responsibility in partnership with trustees or sole responsibility for de-risking compared with 46% when the research was last conducted in 2010. Of this 61%, 40% say de-risking is the employer’s primary responsibility in conjunction with trustees while 21% say it is their sole responsibility. That compares with figures from 2010 where 24% of companies surveyed said employers’ had primary responsibility in conjunction with trustees and 22% said they had sole responsibility.

MetLife Assurance research shows increasing focus on partnership approach from employers and trustees
But two out of five employers are not aware of de-risking options
News 27 Apr 2012
Deutsche Bank Research Highlights: “Global Economic Perspectives: Why the Buba wants to exit”

The ECB’s non-standard monetary policy measures were taken to deal with problems in the financial sector and not to extend monetary policy easing beyond interest rate cuts, as was the case in the US and UK. Our Global Markets Macro Research team examines the impact of refinancing operations on relative prices and states their view of the additional steps that European governments should be taking.
News 23 Apr 2012
Micex's Russian NSD takes up SWIFT share offer

NSD Russia's depository approved an acquisition of six shares of S.W.I.F.T., offered by S.W.I.F.T. following its Board of Directors' decision. This offer was made due to significant growth in NSD's traffic resulted from NDC's merger with MICEX Settlement House. NSD uses S.W.I.F.T. services in the course of its interactions with foreign banks with which NSD opened foreign currency accounts, as well as with international settlement depositories, Russian depositories, and its major clients while processing cash and securities settlements.
News 18 Apr 2012
Institutional clients look to Corporate Bonds in Q1

Money flows through Cofunds’ institutional service show that the Corporate Bond sector was popular across all client types in Q1 this year. This sector was the top ranking amongst product providers and in addition was in the top three for both execution only and wealth managers. The Newton Global Higher Income fund and the M&G Optimal Income fund were joined by Standard Life Investment’s Global Absolute Return Strategy and M&G’s Strategic Corporate Bond as the only funds to enter the top 20 across all three client types. This is the third consecutive quarter that the Newton Global Higher Income fund, managed by James Harries, has achieved this position.
News 17 Apr 2012
Societe Generale Securities Services mandated by Banque Federale Mutualiste

Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS) has been mandated by Banque Fédérale Mutualiste to provide it with global custody services.

Banque Fédérale Mutualiste provides preferential banking services to 900,000 civil servants.
Think Tank 05 Apr 2012
Blame-game tactics applied over AIFMD

Nicola Smith, CEO of Gibraltar fund administrator, Helvetic writes about the EU's AIFMD, as the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the global hedge fund trade association, has expressed concern regarding the new draft text produced by the European Commission on the implementation of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFM Directive).

European Commission ignores advice and points the finger, says administrator