Fee Billing in 2011: Out with the Old; In With the New

Of course global and sub-custodians want to provide the very best in service to their institutional clients across a range of services - safekeeping, settlement, registrar and transfer agency services etc. The sticking point is coping with today's complexity and having processes that can both genuinely cope and are trustworthy in their clients' eyes. The days of Excel and Access are over.The nature of a competitive market leads to negotiated price points on value and service, which when combined with different methodologies or models, increases complexity in the fee schedules.Manual calculations taking place on a monthly or quarterly basis are no longer considered acceptable due to the associated costs and revenue risks. To avoid errors and late billing, custodians need a more concrete way of being able to deal with fees rather than working off of spreadsheets. Not to mention the lack of audit trails. Clients want accurate, timely and flexible billing despite the ever-increasing volumes and complexity of fee arrangements.One of the main challenges faced by the operational departments is in data management. All the data required for billing of custody and fund accounting is often available within a multitude of systems, however, proper extraction of data in a timely fashion which is compatible with the billing function, is rarely repeatable with manual processes. Inefficient billing impacts revenue and leaves clients wondering if they can trust the charges they're being asked to pay. The business case for automation is real and delivers a platform to provide innovative products and services at the right price against the changing custodian landscape.

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