Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP), the UK fund manager owned by Lloyds TSB Bank which outsourced its fund administration needs to State Street, has chosen a software application provided by State Street partners DST.
DST International says SWIP has gone live with the HiCompliance, the post trade compliance function of its HiInvest front office platform. It provides position keeping and compliance checking for front office fund managers and compliance staff. In order for the positions to be checked post trade, the relevant data has to be loaded from Paladign – SWIP’s existing back office solution which required DSTi to develop several complex interfaces that allows the data to be transferred from Paladign to HiInvest. These interfaces have gone into production.
“We are very pleased with both the functionality and the progress we have made,” says Susan Ebenston, SWIP’s chief operating officer. “Having now automated over 800 rules allows our teams to focus on performance rather than administrative tasks.”
When completed, SWIP will have a full suite of front office products that are based on a fully ‘data cleansed and compliant’ data warehouse. Initially, HiInvest will be deployed in SWIP’s offices in the UK, North America and Tokyo.
“This is a significant milestone in the roll out of DSTi technology as the underlying infrastructure throughout the SWIP operation,” claims Steve Edkins, DSTi’s chief operating officer said. “Based on our HiTech technology solution the HiInvest product suite provides significant end user benefits, increasing efficiency and reducing risk. I look forward to the on-going success of the programme now that HiCompliance is live.”
This is just the first phase of a planned implementation of more of HiInvest. DSTi says SWIP’s main objective when purchasing HiInvest was to manage and control data more efficiently and flexibly. The fund manager will be using DSTi’s full HiInvest product set, which includes order management (HiOrders), decision support (HiFrontOffice) and enterprise (pre and post trade) compliance modules, together with HiReporting, HiPerformance and HiMarketData.
“This combination will give a full solution from initial data management and cleansing through deal execution and performance analysis to comprehensive management and client reporting,” says a DSTi spokeswoman. “Existing users of DSTi’s front office products have reported considerable improvements in STP rates.”