Research commissioned by Omgeo and published by Scorpio Partnership, a wealth management consultancy, has reviewed the transaction processing practices of private banks in Switzerland, US and UK and claims that nearly 30% of private banks lack back office automation.
The research says that nearly a third of private banks continue to manually operate trade execution, confirmation and affirmation, rather than processing trades electronically.
Even amongst the remaining 70% of banks who participated in the survey, many still have a considerable amount of manual processes for some types of transactions, according to the report.
“This study highlights the urgent need for automation in Europe’s private banks,” says Kevin Rideout, Global Head of Relationship Management, Omgeo.
“Manual trade processing, such as faxes and phones causes unnecessary operational costs and risks that can be avoided by increasing the levels of STP in the post trade environment. Even within the largest banks that have high levels of automation, there are still certain areas where trade processing becomes fragmented.”