Altus

Fund administrators have much to gain from automating the dealing process for pension investments. Mistakes are rare but potentially very expensive and the administrative overheads of processing investment instructions by fax, e-mail or letter are considerable. Their larger clients expect an efficient service and are increasingly demanding support for the new ViaNova market practice for electronic dealing.

The Altus Funds Gateway automates the whole investment process from receiving and validating instructions, through execution and confirmation, to settlement, reconciliation, exception handling and audit trails. Investment instructions can be received electronically via SWIFT using ISO20022 and the ViaNova market practice or by fax or e-mail where electronic messaging is not supported by the client. In either case, the same process is used giving a consistent set of controls and reports.

Unit holdings are maintained for each client investment account and statements and price reports are dispatched electronically or manually. Deals and liabilities are reported to back-end fund administration systems and administrators have visibility of the whole process from high-level summaries to detailed status reports.

The Altus Funds Gateway is designed to minimise the impact on the existing system landscape. Its modular structure allows it to be deployed as a simple gateway for electronic dealing or a full corporate transfer agency system. An intuitive browser-based user interface, comprehensive set of web-services and choice of SWIFT connectivity methods combine to give a wide range of integration options.