UBS Financial Services, one of the largest providers of managed accounts in the U.S., has joined the DTCC Managed Accounts Service (MAS), a centralized platform designed to automate and standardize communications among sponsors, investment managers and service providers.
"We are extremely pleased to partner with DTCC on this initiative. The managed accounts industry is a prime candidate for standardization which will result in efficiencies that can be passed on to clients," said Stephen Roussin, managing director and head of Investment Solutions, UBS Wealth Management U.S.
According to The Money Management Institute, current assets under management for managed accounts are $1.4 trillion, reflected in large part by high-net-worth households and 78 million baby boomers looking to preserve capital accumulation and minimize the impact of taxes.
Ann Bergin, managing director and general manager, DTCC Wealth Management Services, noted: "UBS is one of the foremost sponsors in this industry, and to have them join our charter members, Citi's Smith Barney and Global Transaction Services businesses, is particularly gratifying to us. Their commitment to the service is further evidence of the importance of industry protocols to remove obstacles to growth and allow market participants to concentrate on product innovation and customer service."
DTCC's MAS provides an efficient and secure process for sharing data required to open and support managed accounts. Most messages today are transmitted through disparate technology platforms or manually. Depending on the size and complexity of an investor's account, a sponsor could have separate connections to multiple investment managers, increasing the potential for errors, delays and high operational costs.
DTCC's service will mitigate these risks and streamline communications among all parties involved with different types of managed accounts. These accounts include single- and dual-contract separately managed accounts where sponsors use the expertise of one or multiple investment managers; and unified managed accounts, which are individual accounts containing numerous investment products - mutual funds, stocks, bonds and exchange-traded funds, for example, in additiontion to separately managed accounts.
MAS operates on DTCC's secure telecom network, which today provides connectivity to virtually all trading parties in the U.S.