J.P. Morgan was ranked as the industrys top fund accounting and administration service provider by a survey of 49 U.K.-based asset managers run by R&M Surveys, the specialist asset servicing management consultancy. The survey ran from May to July this year.
J.P. Morgan edged out BNP Paribas, which topped the survey last year and fell to second place this year. The consultancy says clients raised performance measurement reporting, flexibility of reporting method and ability to handle complicated or new funds as areas of concern for BNP Paribas. However, both J.P. Morgan and BNP Paribas performed strongly on quality of personnel compared to the other banks, R&M pointed out.
Trailing, in order, were State Street, Northern Trust and BNY Mellon. HSBC, which participated last year, chose not to participate in this years survey, R&M says.
R&M says all the banks satisfaction levels dropped this year, save for State Street, with overall satisfaction levels down over last year. The consultancy says this is the result of a challenging economic year. State Street received positive feedback for the quality of regulatory reporting, its ability to handle different transaction types and its ability to support a broad product range, R&M says.
This years survey shows some interesting declines in satisfaction scores as four out of the five banks achieved lower results than in 2011, says Richard Hogsflesh of R&M Surveys. First-placed J.P. Morgan was criticized for its poor compliance monitoring, whilst the two bottom firms, Northern Trust and BNY Mellon, were commended in this area, indicating that next years results could be quite different as banks respond to increasing regulatory pressure.
Global Custodians own Hedge Fund Administration Survey, the 17th annual edition of which was published in August, received 1,293 responses, allowing us to rate 35 administrators and comment on an additional eight. For results of that survey, click here.
(CG)