No-one doubts the importance of regulation for delivering investor protection and market stability. But the regulatory costs on asset managers are substantial and occur at a time when firms are investing heavily in digital transformation and when smaller fintech players who lack regulatory resources are trying to aid positive change in the industry. At the inaugural FundsTech Forum in London on Thursday, a panel of experts discussed whether regulation could hinder innovation. They also debated whether regulators take proportionality into account. And whether Dora – the digital resilience act ..read more

The use of artificial intelligence has as much capacity to benefit private as public markets, according to Karen Sands, the chief operating officer for private equity of the US-based investment firm Federated Hermes. The more secretive aspects of private equity, compared with public markets, has fed a common but inaccurate perception that private equity is more conservative in embracing technology compared with public markets. Speaking at the inaugural FundsTech Forum in London today, Sands told delegates that reporting, the onboarding of clients, anti-money laundering, know-your-client and m ..read more

Facing pressure to prove value, fund managers increasingly turn to digitisation for efficiency and cost reduction. As digital sophistication correlates with performance, has the industry caught up with banking’s advancements in recent years? That was the topic panellists explored in the first post-lunch panel at the FundsTech Forum panel held in London today delved into the world of digital transformation. The panel was comprised of Edouard Legrand, chief digital and data officer at BNP Paribas Asset Management; Martyn Cuff of Cuff Consulting, a former regional COO & global head at Allian ..read more

For AI to revolutionise portfolio management, it is important to have not only an abundance of data, but also the ability to create and collect new investment data as and when it is created. And once it’s collected, the challenge is then to cut through the ‘noise’ that so famously infects market information. So, does this data exist in the abundance needed to enable artificial intelligence to predict stock market movements? And to what extent can machine-learning models be used to carry out complex computational tasks and data analysis? Speaking at the inaugural FundsTech Forum in London on T ..read more

In the second panel at FundsTech held in London today, experts examined various initiatives designed to harmonise and standardise data in the funds industry. The topic industry experts attempted to address was: Why the industry is so poor at creating a central utility that is much needed to create efficiencies and lower the operating and regulatory costs in asset management? Moderated by Nick Fitzpatrick, editor, Funds Europe, the session had Bill Gourlay, managing director, Independent Consultants Network; Simon Swords, CEO, Fundipedia; Thomas Tilly, senior economist ..read more

The UK’s financial regulator the FCA is continually monitoring for systemic risk in the funds industry, the FCA’s head of asset management & pensions Nike Trost, said today following a warning from the Bank of England earlier this week that high interest rates could cause havoc in the £6.5 trillion private equity industry with dire knock-on effects for the wider economy. Asked at the inaugural FundsTech Forum conference whether the FCA shares the Bank of England’s concerns over systemic risk in the private equity sector, Trost said that, while the FCA was, as a regulator, more focused on ..read more

Tokenisation is both challenging and eagerly awaited, much like parenting a teenager. Amidst regulatory uncertainty and potential gaps in understanding demand, the panel on “Tokenisation: the teenage years of development?” examined whether tokenisation is a solution in search of a problem. If not, where should fund firms and providers set their sights next? The panel was attended by Arnaud Misset, chief digital officer, Caceis; Dr Ian Hunt, author and designer of FundAdminChain’s funds ledger, FundAdminChain; Laurence Smith, senior market strategist, ConsenSys and moderated by ..read more

The Swiss fund market marked a robust recovery in the first quarter of 2024, reaching an all-time high volume of CHF 1.5 trillion (Swiss francs). The statistics, compiled by Swiss Fund Data AG and Morningstar, encompassed all funds under Swiss law and foreign funds approved for public sale in Switzerland. This growth, driven by performance gains, saw an increase of 8.7% or CHF 127 billion compared to the end of 2023. With this surge, the market has successfully rebounded from the setbacks of 2022. HANetf lists three new ETFs on SIX Swiss Exchange Performance in equity markets played a pi ..read more

Active ETFs are gaining momentum globally, with the US leading the charge, according to data. Morningstar data has revealed that by March 2024, actively managed ETFs accounted for 8.5% of the US ETF market, while actively managed mutual funds experienced outflows. In contrast, Europe is slowly embracing this trend, with active ETFs making up just 1.9% of the region’s total ETF assets. Bryan Armour, director of passive strategies research at Morningstar, attributed the US growth to investors’ increasing preference for low-cost ETFs and the flexibility asset managers gained after the SEC’s 2019 ..read more

Mirabaud Asset Management has launched a five-year fixed maturity bond strategy to take advantage of attractive yields across global credit. According to the asset manager, the strategy is designed for European investors to get ahead of anticipated rate cuts by locking in higher yields now. “The globally diversified portfolio will focus on investment grade bonds from developed markets, with an allocation to high yield where there are interesting opportunities to enhance the return potential,” it added. Asset allocators eye fixed income, study shows The strategy, designed to be held to maturit ..read more