The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA), in collaboration with SWIFT, has published a new report on the evolution of automation and standardisation rates of fund orders received by transfer agents (TAs) in the cross-border fund centres of Luxembourg and Ireland during the first half of 2020.
The report highlights the progress made towards the increased automation of the amount of fund orders, and the use of ISO standards. Twenty-eight TAs from Ireland and Luxembourg participated in this survey.
The report found:
The tota volume of orders of cross border funds increased by 2.9 percent to 23 million order in the first half of 2020, from 22.4 million orders in the second half of 2019.
The total automation rate of orders of cross-border funds remained stable at 91.9 percent in the first half of 2020. The use of ISO messaging standards dropped from 62.3 percent in Q4 2019 to 57 percent in Q2 2020, while the use of proprietary file transfer protocols (ftp) increased to 34.9 percent in Q2 2020, from 29.5 percent in Q4 2019.
The total automation rate of orders processed by Luxembourg-based TAs decreased to 89.4 percent, from 90.2 percent in Q4 2019. The ISO automation rate decreased from 76.6 percent in Q4 2019 to 75.2 percent in Q2 2020, while the use of proprietary fund transfer protocols (ftp) rose from 13.6 percent to 14.2 peretn during the same period.
The total automation rate of orders processed by Ireland-based TAs increased from 94.6 percent in Q4 2019 to 95.3 percent in Q2 2020. The ISO automation rate decreased from 36.6 percent to 33 percent during the same period, whereas the use of proprietary FTP went up from 58 perent to 62.3 percent.
Tanguy van de Werve, Director General of EFAMA, notes: “Whereas globally the average automation rate of orders of cross-border funds remained stable at around 90% during the first half of 2020, it should be possible to further reduce the share of orders incoming from the APAC and Americas that are still manually processed. Progress towards greater standardisation in these geographies would reduce operational risks and costs and further increase the competitiveness of UCITS”.
