Consumer Duty – how BITA Risk can help

Risk
Wealth Management

Getting good client outcomes should not be down to luck, but the result of following a defined data analysis and exception management process to test outcomes against targets and act on alerts to potential outcome spoilers.

Following our recent article on Consumer Duty – seven steps for successful outcomes, Daryl Roxburgh – President and Global Head BITA Risk® part of the corfinancial® Group presents how BITA Risk helps firms address Consumer Duty demands.

Getting the right outcomes should be the result of following the core principles that makeup Consumer Duty. 

Understanding the client
This means looking at the client’s affairs from more than just a risk and suitability standpoint. True understanding of the client means looking at multiple aspects considering: risk, objectives, constraints, capacity for loss, knowledge and experience, and ethical and ESG preferences. In some cases, this will require a degree of investor education. BITA Wealth Profiler® provides the ability to map the client profile and match it to the firm’s investment proposition. Ongoing monitoring and automated proposals should follow; all data should have been integrated and analysed to reach that point and the risks of the proposed investments would be fully explained.

Foreseeable harm
Foreseeable harm should be considered at the overall portfolio and individual investment level. Harm can be considered as causing the portfolio to miss the client’s objectives, very often measured against the firm’s central investment model or a defined benchmark. BITA Wealth Monitor® helps mitigate foreseeable harm through continual automated assessment of positions and portfolios, along with where the risks are acceptable. Quantitative risk checks at portfolio and asset level, portfolio construction and investment policy tests, pre and post-trade, alert the user to exceptions on every portfolio, every day, not just a random periodic sample. Where there is a known reason for the exception this is documented in the system, providing a full audit trail. With over 50 tests available in BITA Wealth Monitor, including value, there is coverage for a wide range of investment approaches.

Consistent outcomes
The use of BITA Wealth Monitor to mitigate against foreseeable harms has been proven to lead to greater consistency of performance outcomes. The extension of the Monitoring suite and analytics to performance and ex-post risk analysis enables insight and understanding of systemic issues within the client base, such as outlier portfolios, managers, mandates or groups of clients.

Early risk and deviation identification allow for early action. BITA Wealth manages all of this at a granular level, with standard reasons and free text justifications making up actionable structured data.

Management information and oversight
Finally, getting all the data analytics together to be able to understand the client, provide consistent outcomes and identify foreseeable harm means that managers glean greater insight. This can be in terms of client vs peer group and model, performance and risk analysis, or manager vs peers, risk and return analysis. It requires daily, enterprise-level monitoring of portfolios across all foreseeable harms for all businesses, locations, teams and managers and makes for a better level of costs and charges review across the client base.

Using BITA Wealth gives consistency of client assessment and means matching to the investment proposition is much more accurate. This together with the ongoing portfolio monitoring BITA Wealth provides, should lead to consistent client outcomes within an expected range that are relative to the benchmark as well as recorded explanations where there are factors that might prevent a positive outcome. In this way, managed data leads to delivered Consumer Duty.

If you would like to discuss any of the points raised here, please contact us at BITARisk@corfinancialgroup.com or see more information on our solution here.

Consumer Duty – seven steps for successful outcomes

Steps for success

By Daryl Roxburgh – President and Global Head BITA Risk® part of the corfinancial® Group

Wealth Management

Consumer Duty is in the post – and due imminently! The deadline for new and existing products or services open to sales or renewals is 31 July 2023, with closed products and services coming under the rules at the end of July next year. 

As with any new regulation firms will need to cope with an array of demands and challenges. It can feel overwhelming. But successful implementation actually makes for better business, better efficiency, and positive outcomes.

Getting the right outcomes should be the result of following the core principles that underlay Consumer Duty

  1. Understanding the client
  2. Foreseeable harm
  3. Consistent outcomes
  4. MI & oversight

The end result should be the ability to provide a better match of client and investment and the delivery of an investment outcome in line with expectations. Ongoing monitoring of portfolios should mean consistency when it comes to achieving expected outcomes or returns. And if it looks likely that something might impact that outcome then the monitoring will allow for early action and record what action was taken.

The provider also needs to tell their customers when they have something better or more suitable in their portfolio – and facilitate a switch if required.

Obviously, this entails work on the part of the provider to make sure that process efficiency and data analytics are powering the proposition forward as they should be. Getting that right makes it more likely that the investment choice is the right one in the first place. The monitoring meanwhile makes sure that outcomes for all investors are as close to expectations as they could be. None of this is easy but getting it right goes beyond compliance; a happy customer with a positive outcome is a returning customer which is good for business!

However, this array of positive outcomes will not happen by accident. Indeed, it needs to be designed into processes to make sure that a firm is both compliant and forward-looking. Much of this relies on proper data management and analytics – the devil is always in the detail!

The key, we think, is to support the client and make a good outcome more likely by having in place a robust tracking system, focusing on the investment management of a portfolio. This should provide warnings if something is not as expected and requires investigation so as to steer a better course in good time and provide that much-lauded good outcome for the client.

This may all sound like common sense, but it relies on having the right data and processes in place. Below we outline the seven steps that we think are key to getting an optimum outcome testing regime in place.

The seven-step process

1. Define the outcome:
Information on a client’s requirements for a particular portfolio can be assessed and used to match the client into the firm’s investment proposition. Factors can include attitude to risk, portfolio objectives, capacity for loss and other factors such as sustainability, liquidity and time horizon.

The combination of these factors defines the parameters for the expected outcomes and provides the guard rails for monitoring. All of this should be played back to the client in the investment proposal, to see if it meets their understanding.

The proposal then becomes an outcome checkpoint that can be referred back to.

2. Apply a set of objective and consistent tests relevant to that outcome:
The tests that check whether the portfolio is within the guard rails fall into two groups, leading indicators, and ex-post indicators.

Leading indicators look at how a portfolio is constructed and are essentially all about foreseeable harm. This includes factors like risk – volatility and tracking error – asset allocation, concentration risks, research list compliance, and asset checks such as high risk, rare holdings, and equity liquidity. Being alerted early to outliers against these tests enables rapid action.

The ex-post indicators, meanwhile, look at portfolio outcomes. Typically, one-year and three-year absolute and relative performance are checked, with options to calculate ex-post risk and tracking error. The idea is to reveal patterns in outlier performance and trends, and monitor deterioration and rectification. In addition to performance, yield can, where appropriate, be monitored against target.

3. Measure and record the test results so that deviation can be assessed and to inform actions for improvement.
All tests are run nightly, and the user has access to the results on their dashboard daily, giving calls to action. Results for every portfolio for each test are stored weekly providing trend reporting and historic checks at portfolio and enterprise levels.

The result is visibility and the ability to target significant, aged, and consistent issues because investment managers can see where issues lie, and how to assess and correct them.

4. Employ a consistent methodology for root cause analysis.
The first checks for root cause analysis, when the portfolio outcome is not in line with expectations, would be the current monitor tests’ statuses. After that, the past year’s history of test status and the known exceptions on the portfolio would be looked at. Lastly, a check of its performance against its peers for the same risk and objective for the same team and across the firm.

Together these provide a consistent framework for initial review.

5. Manage exceptions
Within every book of business, there are exceptions. Managing them at a granular level with standard reasons and free text justifications to make up structured data that can be analysed, makes sure that exceptions do not become the rule. This provides evidence of a review of issues with the portfolio and the actions agreed.

6. Routine reporting to review outcomes and manage areas of concern.
Reports can be run at any time giving flexibility, but routine reporting provides month-on-month and one- or two-year trend analysis. Used in this way and in conjunction with the number of days out analysis on failed tests, clear pictures of systematic issues can be identified and addressed.

7. Report on the outcome and check satisfaction.
Having captured the client’s requirements and setting their expectations at the start of the process, the annual review report plays back progress to the client and provides a checkpoint. Just as the investment proposal can be run at the desktop in seconds at any time, so can the annual review.

In the report, the current portfolio is compared to the assigned model and a series of checks is provided to the client:

  • Performance against the expected range as set in the client mandate and investment proposal
  • Asset allocation vs assigned model
  • Monitor test status checks and known exception text where applied
  • Trend reports on key monitor tests
  • Manager comments on key sections

Outcomes
By following these seven steps the investment manager gains much better insight into the client’s needs and objectives and can measure against those parameters at any time.

Ongoing testing of the client portfolio against mandate, model and investment policy with leading indications also alerts to foreseeable harm that can be mitigated or documented.

In addition, enterprise helicopter views to identify systematic issues within the firm and aid their resolution, plus an annual client checkpoint that looks at performance against an expected range of returns, can be successfully carried out to show a positive outcome.

If you would like to discuss any of the points raised here, please contact us at BITARisk@corfinancialgroup.com or see more information on our solution here.

Hawksmoor Investment Management signs up for BITA Risk enhanced portfolio monitoring

Hawksmoor Investment Management, has signed up for BITA Risk’s enhanced portfolio monitoring solution
Hawksmoor Logo

London, 5th June 2023 – BITA Risk, part of corfinancial, announces that specialist investment and fund management business, Hawksmoor Investment Management, has signed up for BITA Risk’s enhanced portfolio monitoring solution – BITA Wealth.

BITA Wealth delivers the analysis, data and management intelligence required to help towards delivering the requirements of the FCA’s newly introduced Consumer Duty, spotting foreseeable harm exceptions, accelerating their remediation and providing robust governance arrangements that provide and evidence good customer outcomes.

Hawksmoor’s CEO, Sarah Soar, commented: “We selected BITA Wealth after an extensive RFP process due to its reputation in delivering consistent client outcomes. The platform gives us enterprise oversight and control – enabling us to efficiently manage the risks of portfolio drift. The software will further empower our advisors with intuitive, relevant portfolio analytics that facilitate freedom within an established investment framework. In a nutshell, BITA Wealth will help us scale and manage our business as we continue with our acquisition strategy and bring other investment management firms into the Hawksmoor stable.”

“Our software will help ensure a consistent approach to oversight across Hawksmoor’s diverse range of investment managers. BITA Wealth will also support the implementation of Hawksmoor’s overarching investment strategy and further solidify their excellent risk management processes,” commented Daryl Roxburgh, President and Global Head, BITA Risk. “Underpinned by full exception management and approval processes, we help firms grow through demonstrable risk management, improved client retention, better M&A impact analysis, and protection against reputational risks.”

Hawksmoor Investment Management is a highly acquisitive wealth management firm, specialising in providing high quality discretionary management services for private clients including trusts, pension schemes and charities.

Consumer Duty – are you ready?

Consumer Duty - are you ready?

By Daryl Roxburgh, President and Global Head, BITA Risk® part of the corfinancial® Group

Wealth Management

Consumer Duty is imminent! But what are the practical implications of this legislation?  What needs consideration and how ready are you? 

The basic thrust of Consumer Duty is around best practices.

It is seen as a key facet of the FCA’s three-year strategy to drive good outcomes for consumers. A key part of that is that firms must be able to evidence compliance and in doing so collectively set a standard for the industry as a whole.

Firms need to:

  • Act in good faith towards retail customers
  • Avoid causing foreseeable harm to retail customers
  • Enable and support retail customers to pursue their financial objective(s)
  • Make sure they can deliver good outcomes overall business activities.

Consumer Duty will join up areas that currently are siloed and/ or have low visibility. In doing so the investment process from assessment of objectives through to investment performance will become more transparent and thus firms will have the ability to measure how they are doing when it comes to outcomes at each stage of the process.

Firms have a duty of care towards clients. To achieve this, they will need to assess how they will relate to customers not just through the products that are sold, but how they came to that point and decided what was and was not suitable. The onus is now on providers to tell their customers when they have something better or more suitable in their portfolio – and invite them to make the switch if they choose to do so.

They should also be able to pinpoint how and when they flagged the possibility of something going wrong, what they did about it and when.

This all forces best practice and is the core of Consumer Duty; positioning the right products and services to the right people at the right time and cost to achieve better outcomes across their financial lifecycle.

To do this leveraging data and insight will become more important than ever. At each stage of the process there should be a check of the outcome – not just investment ones – and data available to enable root cause analyses of issues. And, if a firm cannot evidence that it evaluated the customer’s needs from a whole-of-life and holistic viewpoint then they fail in its duty. The means to aggregate the customer’s financial position, and automate the analysis for both the consumer and the provider is a must, so as to provide the data-driven insights that can underpin individual, personalised propositions, as well as evidence that those insights were provided and that the portfolio was properly monitored to avoid foreseeable harm and provide a positive outcome.

Without these data analytics capabilities meeting Consumer Duty requirements will be nigh on impossible. More than that, being compliant with Consumer Duty also represents an opportunity for growth via open-finance, data-driven and customer-centric business models that will position firms well to capture a greater share of wallet, provide operational efficiencies and position them well for profitability.

But have you readied your data collection and analytics capabilities? What do you need to do? Are you ready?

We will shortly be publishing our view of Consumer Duty – Seven Steps for Successful Outcomes.

If you would like to discuss any of the points raised here, please contact us at BITARisk@corfinancialgroup.com or see more information on our solution here.

corfinancial implements CSDR compliance software at Man Group

M Logo

London, 15 May 2023 – corfinancial®, a leading provider of specialist software and services to the financial services sector, announces the implementation of its Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) software, SureVu®, at Man Group, a global active investment management firm with $144.7 billion of AUM (as of 31st March 2023).

SureVu® enables buy-side firms to manage failed trades and cash penalty fees, as defined by the Settlement Discipline Regime, in one single solution.

“We were impressed by the speed with which SureVu went into production. Within three months, we had 90% of our custodians and prime brokers on-boarded and expect to have 100% of these parties live by the end of May,” said Antonio Dos Santos, Head of London Investment Operations at Man Group.

“One of the big drivers to implement SureVu was the changes introduced by the CSDR, but we also saw T+1 on the regulatory horizon and knew that we needed to be on the ‘front foot’ regarding failed trade management. With 15,000-20,000 allocations per day, we needed a clear picture of our pending trades,” explains Dos Santos. “With CSDR, it is important to have failed trade monitoring and cash penalties in the same solution.”

“SureVu helps firms stay in control and manage trade settlement along with high volumes of data associated with cash penalties, applying effective governance across the processes. Companies need a solution in place quickly, without major overheads in IT and operational staff. Man Group has noted the ease and speed with which our solution starts to add real benefits to the business,” said David Veal, Senior Executive at corfinancial. “Such efficiencies are critical when considering the operational pressures envisaged when T+1 goes live next year.”

For more information on the SureVu CSDR solution, contact corfinancial at info@corfinancialgroup.com.

Portfolio risks and suitability – the intelligent anticipation of the unexpected

Meerkat watching

Daryl Roxburgh, President and Global Head of BITA Risk® part of the corfinancial® Group

Wealth Management

In a discussion last week with a CIO, he said, “investors may be disappointed in returns – due to the market – but they do not want to be surprised”. This prompted us to write about how to avoid surprises, or “the intelligent anticipation of the unexpected”. 

Identifying, understanding and mitigating portfolio risks will help remove surprises and lead to more consistent portfolio performance. This does not have to mean 100% rebalancing to a strict model, something that is not always appropriate or possible in HNW and UHNW client portfolios. More than with the right oversight and insight, managers can have freedom within a framework to deliver good suitable outcomes to their clients.

Automating the analysis of portfolios and assets to identify those that fall outside client mandate or investment policy does six things:

  1. Focus attention where needed
  2. Prioritises action by criticality
  3. Identifies patterns or systematic behaviour
  4. Enables known issues to be validated with the client and removed from the exceptions list
  5. Reduces data prep time by 80%, effort that can be better focussed on actions
  6. Puts the tool on the IM desk, making it part of daily portfolio management

Checking beyond basic front office system drift and client restrictions, we would suggest considering eleven different groups of monitor tests, to find the proverbial needle in the haystack before it becomes a risk:

  • Portfolio market risks
  • Concentration risks
  • Bond metrics
  • Performance deviation
  • Goal achievement deviation
  • ESG and ER and preferences and restrictions
  • Asset allocation
  • Asset class characteristics
  • Research and non-research list assets positions
  • Asset attribute flags e.g., risk, liquidity, rare, restricted
  • Admin flags e.g., review due, dummy identifiers

The appropriate and relevant tests will depend on the firm’s investment proposition and business model. Often, different business units served by the same installation will only have a few tests in common.

You might know that 80% of your portfolios have a minimum of 80% invested in assets on the research list, but how concentrated is the money not invested in the research list?  Are there significant positions either at the firm or branch level that are not researched, and are these a risk?

Do certain teams or branches have systematic outlier characteristics? Do certain managers have a very high proportion of portfolios with a CGT exception?

Monitoring these daily not only gives the IM the heads up that they need to check something when it occurs but also provides a trend report through time on the resolution of issues, so continual analysis helps stay on top.

Just as important is a structured process of recording accepted and known exceptions. These not only need internal checks but should also be validated with the client on a periodic basis, closing the loop.

The result of the use of this data, analysis, and process can be expected to be:

  • Better delivery to client expectations and suitability of outcome
  • Reduction in unexpected risks
  • Improved consistency of outcome
  • Demonstrable automated risk management process to attract clients, advisers and IMs
  • Better understanding of the relationship between risks and return in the business.

The frequent comment about Consumer Duty is that much of it is just good business practice. The management information listed above can evidence good outcomes and that the processes are in place to ensure they are being beneficial to the client and firm alike.

If you would like to discuss any of the points raised here, please contact us at BITARisk@corfinancialgroup.com or see more information on our solution here.

Salerio trade processing goes live at Jennison Associates

Jennison Associates + Salerio

New York, March 14, 2023 – corfinancial®, a leading provider of specialist software to the financial services sector, announces that New York-based investment manager Jennison Associates (Jennison) has implemented Salerio, their post-execution trade processing, matching, confirmation and settlement instruction management system.

Salerio’s centralized trade processing management enabled Jennison to retire several inefficient and expensive-to-maintain legacy systems. This provided major gains in data accuracy and real-time management of executed trades earlier in the middle office trade management process.

Jason Minkler, Managing Director and Head of Operations at Jennison Associates, said: “Salerio provides exception management workflows across multiple asset classes via a centralized dashboard which has significantly improved our middle-office processes. We are now able to automate trade workflows and reduce operational risk. The software delivers the mission critical capabilities and governance needed to get ahead of issues.”

Minkler adds: “The Jennison team and corfinancial worked very well together, forming a strong partnership that gave us a solid knowledge base before going live with equities in December. Additional asset classes are scheduled to go live throughout 2023. Furthermore, Salerio supports Jennison’s global trading model, with corfinancial providing round-the-clock support.”

David Veal, Senior Executive – Client Solutions at corfinancial, said: “Our post-trade processing solution is intuitive, making it easy for clients like Jennison Associates to migrate away from legacy systems with confidence. Working in partnership with Jennison, we have enhanced Salerio, which will benefit firms preparing for T+1.”

Founded in 1969, Jennison Associates manages $164 billion of client assets (as of December 31, 2022) in a range of equity and fixed income investment strategies. Jennison’s investing approach is rooted in its fundamental research and security selection; all portfolios are built from the bottom-up, security by security, and its internal research underlies all investment decisions.

For more information on the salerio solution, contact corfinancial at info@corfinancialgroup.com.

A central investment proposition – no guarantee of consistency of outcome

Jigsaw puzzle piece with Consistency is the key concept

Daryl Roxburgh, President and Global Head of BITA Risk® part of the corfinancial® Group

Wealth Management

A Central Investment Proposition (CIP) is no guarantee of consistency of outcome, whether measured by performance, risk, or cost. In this blog, we review two case studies where BITA Wealth helped deliver the CIP and resulted in more consistent results – key to Consumer Duty obligations. 

Case A – freedom within a framework. The firm had autonomous managers, central asset allocation models and a non-mandated research list. When we undertook an initial assessment of portfolios, it was found that there was:

  • Little portfolio risk consistency within risk bands.
  • An issue with concentrated portfolios.
  • Patchy take up on the research list.
  • A high variation in portfolio performance.

Asset allocation drift had previously been relied upon as the key metric and was measured by the front office system.

Following an analysis phase, looking at the portfolio risk and construction characteristics across the book and by mandate in BITA Wealth, initial guidelines were set for each risk category. These covered portfolio risk (volatility), maximum holding weights by asset type, off-research list percentages, high volatility holdings, tracking error and asset allocation against the assigned model.

BITA Wealth gave investment managers a dashboard on which they could identify significant outliers for each metric and the tools to model portfolio changes and bring them into line. Where this was not possible, they could record a known exception and apply a deferral against a test. The governance and oversight team had information instantly available, so could focus their time on reviewing critical outliers and managers’ progress, rather than having to collate data.

Within a year, the external party that reviewed the firm’s client performance and risk against their peer group commented positively on the significant improvement in the consistency of outcomes.

Case B – rebalanced models. The second case study is a little more surprising. A firm was running 300,000 plus client portfolios, all rebalanced to model on a weekly basis.

They were consistently finding, each quarter, that around 10% of portfolios were outside the acceptable deviation from the model performance.

They had a team of six consultants working on investigating and seeking rectification. Given that in many cases,  they were looking at outlier portfolios months after the event that triggered the performance deviation, there was a lot of time spent trawling through historic data.

Using BITA Wealth to analyse all the portfolios down to holding level in an analysis phase and then on data through time, a series of issues were discovered in the process that contributed to the performance deviation. Because of the quarterly review cycle, these were not identified at the time and so resulted in performance deviation. Moving to daily monitoring with BITA Wealth and exception management, would enable next-day rectification of issues and significantly reduce any performance impact.

In some instances, the performance deviation was to be expected, such as the closure of the account mid-quarter or a client holding cash pending investment or withdrawal. However, these had not been consistently identified and marked as known exceptions previously, and so the performance team was required to investigate.

In other cases, cash had come in and not been invested on a timely basis – daily monitoring not only resolved this but enabled root cause analysis of what was causing these failures.

Lastly, the commonality of holding weight between the model and each portfolio was tested daily. This identified the third primary cause of performance deviation. While portfolios were rebalanced to the model, in a number of cases, the portfolio value was significantly below the stated minimum. Given that the portfolios were invested in a wide spread of direct equities, this meant that for assets with a large price per share, these smaller portfolios were not in line with the model weights. This was a more fundamental business model issue. Again, having been identified through the monitoring, the affected portfolios could be carved out for separate action.

These brief case studies give an insight into the challenges of running a Central Investment Proposition, gaining adherence, and ensuring that the outcomes are as consistent as expected.

If you would like to discuss any of the points raised here, please contact us at BITARisk@corfinancialgroup.com or see more information on our solution here.

Consumer Duty: How to prove it

Girl sitting indoors doing mobile payment online.

By Daryl Roxburgh, President and Global Head, BITA Risk® part of the corfinancial® Group

Wealth Management

While plans had to be drawn up by last October, Consumer Duty comes into effect on the 31st of July 2023.

The Consumer Duty

  • A new Consumer Principle that requires firms to act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers.
  • Cross-cutting rules require firms to act in good faith, avoid causing foreseeable harm, and enable and support customers to pursue their financial objectives.
  • Four Outcomes rules require firms to ensure consumers receive communications they can understand, products and services meet their needs and offer fair value, and the support they need

Key to meeting Consumer Duty obligations is assessing, testing, understanding and being able to evidence the outcomes that a firm’s clients are receiving – and having the management information to evidence that products are delivering outcomes consistent with the duty across all clients. Where this Is not the case, there is the need to identify clients or groups of clients that are outliers, and to understand why.

Firms have to ask themselves, are they using the same level of management information and systems to inform their Consumer Duty obligations as they are their sales and product development?

In talking to many firms, we find they have challenges in collecting the data and even when they have, it is in disparate spreadsheets. This prevents the data overlay necessary to understand patterns,  problems and solutions. It is also often generated to long after the fact, to enable easy rectification of issues.

In this blog, we are focusing on foreseeable harm, value and quantitative outcome issues. We have assumed that the client’s needs have been assessed in terms of quantifying any goals and putting these into the context of not only attitude to risk, but broader suitability factors in arriving at the right investment proposition. This proposition has then been played back to the client in such a way that they can understand the risks that they will take. As a senior investment manager said, “they may have a disappointment (due to the markets), but I do not want them to have a surprise”.

Consistency of performance outcome and cost of outcome are cornerstones. Logically, foreseeable harm can then be considered as a factor that could result in a performance or cost deviation from the norm for the portfolio mandate within the firm. So, there is a two-step process, identify potential foreseeable harms – rectifying or acknowledging – and then monitor outcomes. The outcomes should be reviewed separately for those with acknowledged variations and for those expected to conform.

This process creates a feedback loop, identifying clients or groups of clients that have suboptimal returns for their risk mandate and separating out those for which there are known exceptions. By combining data from foreseeable harm factors with risk and return outcome statistics, MI analysis can lead to rectification of systematic issues and discussion of portfolio specific issues with the client.

BITA Wealth brings all of this data together at the Investment Managers’ desktops and enterprise views for management, compliance, and governance. With over 40 portfolio monitor metrics to choose from, the reporting will reflect the metrics key to the firms’ investment propositions.

While many of these foreseeable harm factors are well known as issues, not all firms are able to put them into the context of performance impact. Typically, BITA Wealth will monitor some six to ten portfolio risk and construction factors, along with asset allocation, daily.

Reasons for known exceptions are recorded and can be reported and investment managers have the tools to model rectification, where possible. This can is then overlayed on performance and risk outcomes, giving direction on factors that may have led to deviation from expected performance across groups of clients and possible routes to rectification.

We have interfaced BITA Wealth with most of the leading investment management systems to provide this first and second line of defence for many firms, and today, some £180 billion of private client AUM is monitored and checked in this way. This provides the management information not only to meet Consumer Duty criteria, but also insight into your firm and to ensure that good client outcomes are delivered.

If you would like to discuss any of the points raised here, please contact us at BITARisk@corfinancialgroup.com or see more information on our solution here.

Baillie Gifford goes live with SureVu for CSDR compliance

London, 5 December 2022 – corfinancial®, a leading provider of specialist software and services to the financial services sector, announces the implementation of its SDR (Settlement Discipline Regime) management software SureVu® at Edinburgh-based investment manager Baillie Gifford.

Baillie Gifford is unique in the UK in being a large-scale investment business that has remained an independent private partnership, who manage and advise £228bn (US$ 253bn) in specialist equity, fixed income and multi-asset portfolios for a global client base.

“SureVu is a very user-friendly system that clearly presents data on the problem trades that require attention. The ‘exceptions’ tab and the management dashboard is an immediate time-saver for us. The visibility and prioritisation that SureVu provides has improved efficiency for us, enabling us to proactively resolve unmatched trades before they fail,” says Daryl Salmon, Equity & Bond Operations Manager at Baillie Gifford. “Additionally, the shift towards a reduced settlement period is certainly driving operational process efficiencies across the investment management industry. By onboarding SureVu it is ultimately going to make our lives easier when T+1 comes into play,” explains Salmon.

“In an ever-tightening regulatory environment, it is even more critical to closely monitor trades through the settlement cycle,” says Bruce Hobson, CEO at corfinancial. “Following the introduction of the new CSDR regulation, it is imperative to have a timely and reliable solution that enables firms to effectively govern middle office processes.”

For more information on the SureVu solution, contact corfinancial at info@corfinancialgroup.com.