The addition of OneVue and Mainstream, and their respective fund manager clients, trebles the number of participants benefiting from Calastone’s straight-through-processing transfers solution.

Transfers involve a series of transactions triggered when an adviser elects to move investor holdings from one platform to another. The process, which allows beneficial ownership of securities to move to a different custodian without having to be sold and repurchased through the market, has historically caused considerable cost and time for the involved parties, often requiring wet signatures and postage delays.

Since introducing the solution in early 2017, Calastone has reduced the average transfer completion time from two weeks to less than 12 hours, with the fastest recorded transfer processed in under six minutes. Over 30,000 transfers have been processed representing a network that has now grown to seven registries, six platforms and 48 fund managers.

Ross Fox, Acting Head of Australia and New Zealand at Calastone, said “The number of registered participants and volume of transfers have trebled over the last 12 months, indicative of the growing competitive pressures driving fund managers, platforms, advisory firms and custodian registries to adopt safer, faster and more transparent ways of doing business.”

“Calastone’s Transfers solution addresses a major friction point that has long frustrated industry participants due to the intensive documentation and authorisation required when an adviser initiates a single or bulk transfer to a different platform,” he said.

“Straight-through-processing allows for seamless and transparent transfers, removing the uncertainty, delays and risk inherent in manual processing of these complex transactions.”

Richard Harris-Smith, Deputy Group CEO at OneVue commented: “We are always looking to improve and optimise the experience and outcomes for our clients and their investors. The saved risks and time experienced by us and the 32 fund manager clients we’ve transitioned is an exciting indication of the value yet to be unlocked for the industry through increased automation.”

Andy Harrison, CEO of Mainstream Fund Services in Australia, added: “Our mission is to help our clients improve their efficiency and levels of automation while lowering costs. Through our partnership with Calastone, our clients on the platform see immediate benefits in the quality and speed of transactions we process on their behalf.”

Paul Hagger, Head of Custody at netwealth, which has used Calastone’s Transfers solution since its roll out, commented: “The platform space continues to embrace innovation and technology to both enhance and differentiate its value and portfolio of services, so the ability to transfer holdings across platforms is key to market efficiency and competition. By automating the highly manual and costly transfers process, Calastone is enabling greater efficiency, confidence and certainty in how the managed funds supply chain interacts.”

Fox added: “Calastone continues to work collaboratively with industry participants to automate key distribution and administration functions that support a more dynamic managed funds industry in Australia and around the globe.”

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Sarah Hayward

Calastone, the global funds transaction network, has announced a new automated solution to support a faster, safer and more efficient transfer of clients’ managed funds holdings across platforms.

Following a successful pilot, several of Australia’s leading fund managers, administrators and platforms are now connected to Calastone’s Transfers solution, which automates in-specie transfers, accelerating the typically two-week transfer process to possible completion in under an hour.

Platform operators BT, netwealth investments limited and Macquarie have joined major fund firms including Vanguard, Platinum, APN Property Group and BTIM as the first adopters of this new innovative solution. Additionally, registry service providers RBC Investor & Treasury Services and White Outsourcing have also connected on behalf of the collective 11 fund managers under their administration.

Calastone Managing Director Australia & New Zealand Sarah Hayward said, “broader industry adoption of the solution can further accelerate the process to just minutes, bringing massive relief to back offices that support Australia’s competitive investment sector.

“Transferring a client from one platform to another, initiated typically by an adviser, involves a complex and manual exchange of signed forms at the platform, custodian, registry and fund levels to allow holdings to move without a capital gains tax event or forcing the investor to exit and re-enter the market.

“Working in collaboration with our clients we have adapted the solution from our proven UK Transfers solution to suit Australian requirements and provide a unified and automated way of managing the transfer process, with more certainty and less risk,” she said.

Paul Hagger, Head of Custody at netwealth investments limited commented: “We signed up to Calastone Transfers because a faster, more secure and electronic transfer process enhances our ability to service our clients. Visibility is also a key feature of the solution, allowing us to see a real-time audit trail and status of the transfer so both the sender and receiver can follow the process and know once the transfer is complete.”

Calastone’s Transfers Solution follows the firm’s well established order routing solution that was introduced in 2011 to automate the order flow of managed funds between platforms and fund managers. In 2016 Calastone rolled out its reporting solution that automates the flow of information involved in unit holding reconciliations and income distributions.

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