Scottish Friendly acquired Marine & General Mutual earlier this year, effectively doubling its assets to over £2 billion. The acquisition, as part of a strategy of expansion and diversification, prompted Scottish Friendly to review its fund accounting system. The aim was to find a solution which could handle the organisation’s increased volumes of activity and the growing complexity of funds under management. An evaluation of both the existing internal system and a number of vendor offerings was put in place, and Linedata Icon as a hosted solution was selected.

Linedata’s award-winning fund administration solution was chosen for its flexible functionality and proven scalability, which would meet Scottish Friendly’s present and future needs. Other factors were also taken into consideration; Liam Gilmore, Scottish Friendly’s Head of Finance explains: “We knew that Linedata Icon could meet the functional requirements of Scottish Friendly both now and within a multi-year timeframe. It also has an excellent record as a hosted solution, which eliminates hardware and upgrade issues for us. Linedata has an established presence in Scotland, with a significant client base, a local support office and regular client events so we are confident that we will get support, regular communication and networking that help us derive maximum benefit from our investment in the system.”

The initial system implementation was completed in less than a month, with 15 funds totalling approximately £1 billion assets under management (AUM) now live and plans to add a further 25 funds covering another £1 billion AUM over the coming months.

Linedata Icon is a highly flexible and scalable solution with an open methodology enabling clients to adapt quickly for new requirements. Recent innovations, such as Linedata Optima, a specialised BPM tool for fund accounting and Linedata I-CIPS, a standalone NAV and Collective Investment Price calculation and validation engine, ensure that Linedata Icon is at the forefront of fund administration technology.

“We are delighted to welcome Scottish Friendly as another new client for Linedata Icon,” says Thierry Soret, Head of Back Office Asset Management at Linedata. “Linedata continues to invest in Linedata Icon to ensure that our clients can rely on us to meet their administration system needs, in terms of functionality, scalability, regulatory updates and new instrument coverage. Beyond that, we also pride ourselves on the high levels of support and communication we maintain as we believe that these are vital to a successful partnership with our clients.”