SIX launches front-office service to assess tax-related costs of financial products

The tool is designed to analyse the tax consequences of financial products, and is available to banks, wealth and asset managers.

By Richard Schwartz

SIX has launched a new tax efficiency data tool for wealth and asset managers in a move that further confirms the industry trend towards the blurring of boundaries between front- and back-office services.

Called “SIX Tax Score”, the tool is designed to analyse the tax consequences of financial products, and is available to banks, wealth managers and asset managers in the form of a benchmark covering Swiss, UK and French tax jurisdictions.

“SIX Tax Score will allow banks, wealth managers and asset managers to not only fulfil their tax reporting duties in their back office but also anticipate tax costs when advising clients,” explains Marion Leslie, head, financial information, and member of the executive board, SIX. “With increasingly complex and ever-changing tax regimes, this will become crucial in investment decisions and client advisory.” 

By assessing the financial data of individual securities and complex financial products, SIX Tax Score calculates a daily tax cost ratio for the asset.

The primary advantage of the offering is the provision of a tax efficiency score in the form of a comparable mathematical value on an individual security level. This can serve as an indicator of the future tax-related charges of investing in that security.

The calculation method of the new data tool was developed in partnership with a global Big Four tax partner. 

The new data offering currently covers tax-related charges on dividend and interest income, fund distributions and capital gains for equities, bonds, funds and structured products for individual investors under Swiss, UK and French tax jurisdictions.

SIX stated it is working on expanding the scope of SIX Tax Score to include other tax jurisdictions to service an increasingly global customer base.

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