Total automation rates of fund orders received by transfer agents reached 78.7% at the end of 2013 in Luxembourg and Ireland, compared to 77.7% a year earlier.
The European Fund and Asset Management Association and Swift say this was because of an increase in the use of ISO messaging standards (by 1.5 percentage points to 45.3%), and a fall in the use of manual order processing and proprietary file transfer protocol formats, totalling 21.3% and 33.4% at the end of last year.
Peter De Proft, director general of the association, says five years ago an 80% target for the automation rate of orders of cross-border funds was set.
“The transfer agent communities of Luxembourg and Ireland have never been so close to reaching this goal,” he says. “The achievement, and the regular monitoring of the progress made in this area, highlights the fund industry’s commitment to become more efficient to the benefit of its clients.”
The total automation rate in Luxembourg increased to 75.3% (by 1.6 percentage points) and that for Ireland to 85.6% (by 0.3 percentage point).
©2014 funds europe
