More than 80% of fund administration leaders surveyed are concerned that multiple manual processes, a common practice in fund administration, impedes their ability to control errors in reporting and documentation to investors and regulators, according to a new survey conducted by Confluence. In addition, 80% believe that data consolidation is an important issue.
Confluence, the global investment management industry’s provider of automated data management solutions, releases the findings of a survey of 115 “C-level” executives and other management professionals at these companies. The survey shows that nearly 77% are also concerned that manual data entry challenges their ability to meet reporting deadlines. Perhaps in response, more than 25% plan to centralize their fund administration data into a single database in the next 12 months.
“The findings support our belief that the industry is serious about employing automation as a strategic initiative to expand their business,” says Kirk Botula, executive vice president and CEO of Confluence. “As more of these companies become global, fund administration automation is a critical strategy to increase productivity and reduce costs, while allowing them to grow efficiently and meet regulatory and investor requirements.”
Fund administration has become more complex and demanding in recent years as regulatory requirements and the number of investment products have simultaneously increased. Yet, use of multiple manual spreadsheets for these processes is still the “rule” at many companies. According to the Confluence survey, 26% of respondents rely on these spreadsheets for more than half of their fund administration processes, and another 23% rely on them for 26 to 50% of these processes.
The majority of respondents also believe that it is very/extremely important to automate fund administration in order to:
-Minimise reporting errors (84%);
-Control administration costs (54%);
-Improve data integrity (72%); and-Increase the scalability of operations (71%).
Additionally, seven in ten respondents (72%) believe that automating fund administration will also benefit their organisations by enabling staff to spend more time on strategic issues.