The £17 billion Electricity Supply Pension Scheme (ESPS), the UK’s fourth largest pension scheme with approximately 200,000 members from 26 power companies, has extended its global custody contract with Bank of New York to include investment accounting, compliance monitoring and reporting to the suite of services it provides to ESPS. A number of staff will transfer from ESPS to the Bank as part of this transaction to help improve efficiency, control costs and ensure effective risk controls.
Until now, bank f New York has served ESPS as master global custodian. “We chose to widen our mandate with The Bank of New York because it has demonstrated its commitment not only to global custody, but also to the UK pension fund sector,” says Richard Barlow, chief executive of ESPS. “We are confident that the Bank will continue to maintain and improve our risk controls and provide us with high quality service, both of which are of critical importance to our members.”
Tim Keaney, executive vice president and head of Europe at The Bank of New York, says the appointment “underscores our expertise in investment accounting and compliance reporting and demonstrates our ability to provide value-added services deriving from our master custody role. It is a natural extension of our 20-year relationship with ESPS and a wonderful endorsement of the services we currently provide to them.”