Fund administrators eye new tech

Three service providers are launching tech offerings this year, addressing outdated back office practices.

UK and Channel Island fund administrators are readying their latest products in the back office technology market.

Colmore, a fund administrator recently spun out of Capital Dynamics, will launch a report management web platform.

“[The platform will] help investors produce detailed reporting for cashflows and currency exchange information that can be delivered in real time. The next step would be to provide an app. The web platform is already in use with Capital Dynamics LPs, and we’re adding our own LP customers,” Ben Cook, chief executive of Colmore, told pfm.

He was also keen to see tech higher on the agenda for private fund managers. “We absolutely have to use tech better in private equity. There’s been an increasing amount of investment in fintech by private equity firms and this should be transferring into the fund services sector,” he added.

David Bailey, head of marketing and communications at Augentius, agreed. “All the partners that run the private equity firms are deal guys. They’re not overly concerned about data and back office requirements,” he told pfm. “That approach is changing slowly, and we’re coming into the market in the next few weeks with a fund administration product.”

The Augentius product is predominantly aimed at GPs, assisting data collection and workflow management.

Bailey added technology need to become more intuitive. “Standardized reporting doesn’t necessarily work with GPs, as each LP has different requirements. Where the technology needs to get to is GPs providing LPs with a pool of data, from which they can extract what’s pertinent to them,” he said.

Heritage, a Guernsey-based fund administrator, has also developed its existing reporting platform for one of its clients, and bought an Annex IV reporting for AIFMD platform.

However, Mariana Enevoldsen, director at Heritage, said not all investors are keen to mobilize new technology.

“Sometimes clients don’t use the technology. Everyone talks about investor portals for example, but in reality many LPs prefer an email with the information in it. I think the client interaction doesn’t need to be as technology driven, but in the back office technology continues to advance,” she said.