Back Office and Custody - Articles & White Papers

Running a pension scheme has become complex and so has the task of governing it well. In the UK, the Pensions Regulator (TPR) offers useful guidance to help trustees mitigate risk. However, there is one area of risk highlighted by TPR that the authors of this report believe is less well understood, and that's the area of…

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is disrupting almost every industry in every country and creating massive change at unprecedented speed. Financial services have not been immune to the wave of digitalisation sweeping across most elements of our lives, with the banking and investment management communities looking to…

Since the global financial crisis, US banks have paid more than USD 160 billion in fines for non-compliance. Regulatory pressure is increasing, and so are the costs for being compliant. What is the best way forward for financials? This is where regtech comes in.

This paper by Grant Thornton reviews the current state of firms’ architecture and poses two critical questions: (i) What does capital markets architecture of the future look like? (ii) How can it be simplified to maximise the value of investments?

This PwC report is centred around client discussions and data collected by surveying Chief Risk Officers across leading UK asset managers. It reveals that there are a number of challenges facing the risk function in meetings its objectives. It also explains how the asset and wealth management sector can brace itself for this…

2017 was a notable year for the Irish financial services. We saw high profile banks and insurance firms endorse Ireland as their destination of choice post-Brexit, with a number of large multinational Financial Services firms choosing Ireland as the location for their European headquarters. Inside our salary guide we talk…

This article aims to address some key trends, focusing on the regulatory landscape, on processes and technologies and on the future of custody.

Securities lending plays an important role in today’s global capital markets. It has long been a fundamental component of financial markets as a means of meeting settlement and collateral requirements, as well as providing vital liquidity to secondary markets. This paper acts as a guide for institutional investors.

NEPC recently completed our tenth annual survey of all the hedge funds used by our clients. This survey focuses on back office areas and internal fund operations, and highlights trends we are seeing in the hedge fund industry.

The 2019 European Operations and Technology Survey for real estate investment managers portrays an industry that is currently adapting to evolving market conditions, a changing regulatory environment, and a fast-growing technological landscape.

FactSet discusses recent updates to GIPS reporting standards. CFA Institute released their third iteration of changes earlier this year.

This article from efinancialcareers reports on levels of salary and bonus, bank-by-bank, following the most recent bonus round. Compensation is shown across a variety of tiers of analyst and associate grades.

This report by Hays is based on a survey of almost 23,000 UK employers and employees. It helps employees benchmark themselves against others within their respective sectors. The survey includes Accountancy & Finance, Insurance, Marketing, Office Support, and more.

Most financial firms will be facing significant consequences from the end of 2021, when the majority of Interbank Offered Rates (IBORs) will be phased out by regulators and replaced by new alternative reference rates (ARR). With many consequences only just emerging, understanding the impact for each firm and taking the right…

In 2016 banks and investment management companies have focused their recruitment needs on positions that specialise in both reporting regulations and capital regulations as a result of strict guidelines from the Central Bank to improve efficiency in these areas.

The 2018 Robert Half Salary Guide for Accounting and Finance Professionals contains compensation figures based on placements made by our U.S. recruiting and staffing professionals. We present this data, along with our staffing managers’ knowledge of market conditions and hiring trends, to show where we believe compensation…

Trustees are used to getting a good retail experience, backed by developments in technology, and expect similar standards to apply to their working lives. Oliver Jaegemann discusses how to improve the institutional client experience.

Institutional investment platforms have a wide variety of objectives and capabilities. Oliver Jaegemann reviews the different types of platforms and the key questions to consider when choosing to work with a platform.

SimCorp explains why the buy side should learn from failures and be guided by industry successes.

Our salary survey revealed that UK accountants are earning desirable salaries, but it also highlighted the problem areas which the industry need to address to make it more equal.