Transforming cash and trade operations in the Indian asset management industry

Asset Management companies in India are under tremendous pressure to reduce cost due to declining revenues and volumes, pushing the industry to look at ways to reduce the inefficiencies caused by manual processes as well as improve the timeliness of information.

However, the current lack of standardisation and the proliferation of bespoke channels between different counterparties hindered the ability of the industry to achieve yet the operational efficiency that is required to confidently say that operational risk is under control. As Asset Management companies in India are dealing with an expanding range of asset types and a growing number of counterparties and transaction volumes, whilst being pressured by regulation and compliance obligations, the need for automation and scalability is stronger than ever.

Swift’s latest paper “Transforming Cash and Trade Operations in the India Asset Management Industry” explores the current state of automation and ways to enable harmonised exchange of structured financial information across parties in the securities trade lifecycle and asset classes, to help the Indian Asset Management industry achieve end-to-end automation and straight through processing. This paper is presenting Swift’s perspectives and solutions on how India can reach higher levels of automation and efficiency. Swift’s messaging solutions for securities & payments are built on global standards, which enables participants to connect easily to the market while reducing costs and risks.

Alexandre Kech, Head of Securities and FX markets, APAC, Swift, said: “as shown in this paper, the Asset Management industry in India is in great need for automation and standardisation to reach increased efficiency. Strong of its experience, Swift can help eliminate the need of proprietary channels and multiple file formats to replace them by a single, standardised, secure and resilient global and domestic platform.”