Australian fund managers need greater data control

Australian fund managers need to take greater control of data to ensure its integrity, according to Misys Asia sales director (buy side), Didier Giesen. 

He said a change in the working habits of Australian fund managers would fit in with the requirements of the Government's SuperStream reforms. 

Giesen said Australian fund managers relied heavily on their custodians and manual processes and therefore had poor control of data. 

Custodians currently pushed data and information to fund managers with little use of automation processes, he said.

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Fund managers should invert the data collection and reporting processes with custodians to safeguard super funds' information, Giesen said. 

"In most of the other regions we're talking to, processes are much more automated.  

"They have automatic order generations systems and they don't need to maintain Excel spreadsheets with positions," he said. 

Managers relied on the one stream of information fed through their custodian channel rather than taking ownership and managing their own data, Giesen said. 

"If you only rely on one source of information, you take the risk of not making sure the data you receive is correct because you have no comparisons," he said. 

Giesen said that instead of receiving files from the custodian, the fund manager should retain ownership of the data, send the custodian new data files and compare the information it then receives back from the custodian. 

"There's certainly a challenge there for the market in changing their workforce process and having the habit to use their own data and compare them with what they receive back from brokers, from custodians and from fund administrators," Giesen said.