The results of the Global Custodian 11th annual Mutual Fund Administration Survey are released today. A summary of rated providers and the Best in Class (BIC) awards that they earned are listed below in Table 1. To illustrate the changes in provider ratings since 2011, we've used a color coding system where green indicates upward movement in a rating, red a downward movement, and blue indicates that a provider achieved a rating in a category it did not qualify for the previous year.
Table 1: Rated Providers According to Category and Number of BIC Awards Received
| | Top Rated | Commended | Unrated |
Global | Atlantic, Brown Brothers Harriman, Citi | BNY Mellon, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, RBC Dexia, State Street | |
Less than $100 Million | ALPS (8), Atlantic (8), CACEIS (8), | Brown Brothers Harriman (2), HSBC, J.P. Morgan (2), RBC Dexia (3) | |
$100 Million-$1 Billion | ALPS (8), Atlantic (7), Brown Brothers Harriman (8), CACEIS (7), Citi (8), RBC Dexia (7), U.S. Bancorp (7) | BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, HSBC, J.P. Morgan* (7) | |
$1-5 Billion | ALPS (8), CACEIS (8), Citi (7) , State Street (1), U.S. Bancorp (8) | Atlantic (2), BNY Mellon, Brown Brothers Harriman (5), HSBC, RBC Dexia, State Street (1) | |
More than $5 Billion | Brown Brothers Harriman (7), CACEIS (8), State Street (6) | ALPS* (8), BNY Mellon (2), Citi (4), HSBC, J.P. Morgan (1), RBC Dexia** | |
Equity | ALPS (8), Atlantic (5), BNP Paribas (5), Brown Brothers Harriman (6), CACEIS (8), Citi (7), U.S. Bancorp (8) | BNY Mellon, HSBC, J.P. Morgan (2), RBC Dexia (2), State Street (4) | |
Fixed Income | ALPS (8), Brown Brothers Harriman (4), CACEIS (8), Citi (5), State Street (5), U.S. Bancorp (8) | Atlantic (2), BNP Paribas (5), BNY Mellon (1), HSBC, J.P. Morgan (1), RBC Dexia (4) | |
Funds of Funds | BNP Paribas (4), Brown Brothers Harriman (6), CACEIS (8), J.P. Morgan (3), State Street (6) | ALPS* (8), BNY Mellon (1), Citi (1), HSBC (1), RBC Dexia (2) | |
Other Funds | ALPS (8), Atlantic (8), Brown Brothers Harriman (5), CACEIS (8), Citi (6), RBC Dexia (5), U.S. Bancorp (8) | BNP Paribas (3), BNY Mellon (1), HSBC, J.P. Morgan (1), State Street (5) | |
North America | ALPS (8), Atlantic (8), Citi (8), J.P. Morgan (5), RBC Dexia (6), U.S. Bancorp (8) | BNY Mellon, Brown Brothers Harriman (1), State Street | |
Europe | Brown Brothers Harriman (7), CACEIS (8), Citi (6) | Atlantic, BNP Paribas (2), BNY Mellon, HSBC, J.P. Morgan (2), RBC Dexia (1), State Street (1) | |
Asia-Pacific | Brown Brothers Harriman (7), Citi (8) | HSBC (2), State Street (2) | |
Middle East | HSBC (8) | | |
Single Provider | ALPS (8), Atlantic (7), CACEIS (8), RBC Dexia (6), U.S. Bancorp (8) | BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon (3), Brown Brothers Harriman (4), Citi (3), HSBC, J.P. Morgan (3), State Street (3) | |
Multi-Provider | ALPS (8), Atlantic (6), Brown Brothers Harriman (6), CACEIS (8), Citi (5), J.P. Morgan (4), State Street (4), U.S. Bancorp (8) | BNP Paribas (5), BNY Mellon, HSBC, RBC Dexia (1) | |
* Only the longstanding survey rule preventing a shift of more than one rating a year denies this provider Top Rated status
** Were it not for the longstanding rule preventing a shift of more than one rating a year, this provider would be Not Rated
Results were based on the submissions of some 404 mutual funds. In addition to the administrators listed in Table 1, responses were received for UMB Fund Services. While the responses were too few in number to qualify for rating, we were able to include a short assessment on the administrator.
Methodology
In total, the survey questionnaire included 57 rating questions that covered the following eight service areas: Client Service and Relationship Management; Value; Fund Accounting and Valuations; Transfer Agency; Distribution Support; Portfolio Servicing; Fund Reporting; and Compliance, as well as general questions designed to help us understand the business profile of each respondent.
Respondents graded the quality of service on a scale of 1 to 7, where 7 is excellent; 6, very good; 5, good; 4, satisfactory; 3, weak; 2, very weak; and 1, unacceptable. Scores were then weighted for the size and sophistication of the respondent and for performance on questions named as important in each service area by all respondents.
Providers are rated as Top Rated 
or Commended 
for overall performance in the survey across 15 ratings categories. Those include four assets-under-management categories (Less Than $100 Million, $100 Million-$1 Billion, $1-$5 Billion, More Than $5 Billion), four regions based on the location of the client (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East), four investment strategy categories (Equity, Fixed Income, Fund of Funds, Other Funds), two servicing style categories (Single and Multi-Provider), as well as an overall Global category, which is awarded to providers who are rated in a broad combination of the aforementioned categories. To achieve Top Rated status, a provider must secure a weighted average score that equals or betters the combined weighted average score of all providers in that category. Commended status is assessed more subjectively. As a general rule, no provider with a weighted average score below 5.0 can expect to be considered. A provider that received enough responses but an insufficiently high score is declared Unrated 
, while a provider that failed to secure enough responses is Not Rated 
.
In addition to achieving ratings, providers are awarded Best in Class (BIC) awards, which aim to recognize excellence in servicing clients of different providers based on the 14 size, investment strategy, regional and servicing style categories in the eight separate service areas. To earn a BIC award, a provider must secure a weighted average score that is equal to or higher than the weighted average score of all providers in a particular combination of service and category. All in all, service providers are eligible for a total of 15 ratings (including Global) and 112 BIC awards. It should be noted that while ratings are available for the Global category, individual BIC awards are not. A full list of benchmarks can be found in Table 2.
Table 2: Benchmark Scores
| | Global | <$100M | $100M-$1B | $1-$5B | $5B+ | Equity | Fixed Income | Fund of Funds | Other Funds | North America | Europe | Asia-Pacific | Middle East | Single Provider | Multi-Provider |
Client Service | 6.02 | 6.19 | 6.21 | 6.04 | 5.93 | 6.01 | 6.01 | 5.92 | 5.98 | 6.28 | 5.92 | 5.52 | 5.95 | 6.26 | 5.86 |
Value | 5.69 | 5.84 | 5.84 | 5.68 | 5.63 | 5.70 | 5.68 | 5.61 | 5.69 | 5.97 | 5.62 | 5.15 | 4.92 | 5.87 | 5.58 |
Fund Accounting | 6.23 | 6.36 | 6.39 | 6.27 | 6.14 | 6.22 | 6.21 | 6.07 | 6.19 | 6.45 | 6.14 | 5.87 | 5.82 | 6.38 | 6.11 |
Transfer Agency | 5.96 | 6.14 | 6.21 | 5.99 | 5.82 | 5.95 | 5.96 | 5.84 | 5.95 | 6.21 | 5.84 | 5.60 | 5.65 | 6.15 | 5.84 |
Distribution Support | 5.91 | 6.07 | 6.06 | 6.06 | 5.75 | 5.89 | 5.89 | 5.80 | 5.89 | 6.18 | 5.74 | 5.82 | 5.77 | 6.11 | 5.80 |
Portfolio Servicing | 5.79 | 5.97 | 5.91 | 5.95 | 5.67 | 5.79 | 5.80 | 5.68 | 5.81 | 6.02 | 5.79 | 5.34 | 5.42 | 5.94 | 5.71 |
Fund Reporting | 5.89 | 6.05 | 6.15 | 5.87 | 5.78 | 5.88 | 5.89 | 5.84 | 5.85 | 6.13 | 5.78 | 5.55 | 5.42 | 6.11 | 5.74 |
Compliance | 5.96 | 6.05 | 6.15 | 6.03 | 5.86 | 5.96 | 5.95 | 5.86 | 5.94 | 6.20 | 5.89 | 5.59 | 5.44 | 6.24 | 5.79 |
Total | 5.93 | 6.08 | 6.12 | 5.99 | 5.82 | 5.93 | 5.92 | 5.83 | 5.91 | 6.18 | 5.84 | 5.56 | 5.55 | 6.13 | 5.80 |
The full results of the Global Custodian Global Custody Survey, and a full explanatory methodology, can be accessed by subscribers here.
Contacts:
Dominic Hobson, Editor in Chief, at dhobson@globalcustodian.com or +44 (0) 207 228 3013
Allison Cayse, Surveys Editor, at acayse@globalcustodian.com or +1 513 574 0220
Muzaffar Karabaev, Survey Reprints/Research Enquiries, at mkarabaev@globalcustodian.com or +44 (0) 207 148 4289