Citi Australia has been appointed by Australian fund manager and exchange traded funds (ETF) specialist BetaShares as its provider of custody and fund administration services.
The mandate is the latest win for Citi, which has taken on 24 new Australian clients in the past 18 months. These clients primarily transitioned to Citi following a client transfer agreement with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in 2020.
By taking over RBC’s Australian client-base, Citi became the second largest custodian in the country, behind JP Morgan.
BetaShares manages a ranges of ETFs in the Australian market. The fund manager launched a new Crypto Innovators ETF on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) last week.
“Citi is uniquely placed to assist us to execute on our plans to expand our suite of investment solutions for our growing investor base,” said BetaShares CEO, Alex Vynokur.
“We are confident in Citi’s ability to provide the required operational support towards our efforts to continually improve the experience for our investors.”
Citi has been sweeping up ETF servicing mandates this year, the majority of which have been in the Asia-Pacific region.
In June, the bank supported the industry’s largest mutual fund to ETF conversion for Dimensional Fund Advisors, representing $29 billion in assets.
Meanwhile other mandates have been won from Mirae Asset Management, CSOP Asset Management and Tuttle Tactical Management over the past 12 months.
“Australia is and continues to be an incredibly important growth market for our Securities Services business as well as the wider Citi franchise,” said Julie Kerr, Citi’s head of custody and fund services for Asia Pacific.
“Being appointed by a leading fund manager such as BetaShares is an incredible vote of confidence in the services we provide.”