J.P. Morgan has partnered with global asset manager BlackRock to provide transfer agency services in Asia Pacific, in a bid to enhance the investment management firm’s services that it offers to its clients and supporting the company’s growth plans across the region.
Under the arrangement, BlackRock has outsourced its Asian fund fax deal processing function to J.P. Morgan, an initiative which has grown J.P. Morgan’s transfer agency team to approximately 20 dedicated specialists handling up to 3,000 manual trades per day, primarily for Luxembourg and Irish domiciled funds.
J.P. Morgan has been administering many of our Luxembourg and Irish domiciled funds for many years, so this is a logical and pragmatic extension of our relationship,” says Dan Schwieger, Global Head of Shareholder Services at BlackRock.
J.P. Morgan’s transfer agency platform currently supports the Asian distribution of offshore funds in the Asian region as well as domestic funds in Hong Kong and Singapore, and also provides transfer agency services to hedge funds. In addition, the firm offers local representative services for global institutional clients with a limited presence in Asia Pacific, and also provides AML / KYC support in accordance with Luxembourg and Ireland regulatory requirements.
The partnership will also align the core competencies of trade execution within J.P. Morgan and allow BlackRock to focus on its client service delivery in Asia Pacific.
“J.P. Morgan will continue to invest and enhance its transfer agency platform through 2011 and 2012, with a focus on developing services and attracting new clients based in key growth markets for distribution, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, as well as domestic funds in Hong Kong and Singapore,” says Euan McLeod, Senior Product Manager, Transfer Agency, Asia Pacific, J.P. Morgan Worldwide Securities Services.