This innovative solution was initiated in recognition of the increasing Regulatory governance globally within the industry and the pressures around unit pricing processing times and validation. The sophisticated investment management tool has been initially launched within the Australian market in response to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's (APRA) November 2005 findings relating to best practice market discipline surrounding unit pricing systems.

As part of its ongoing prudential commitments, APRA reviews aspects of unit pricing practice and ascertains how product providers assess and comply with their unit pricing obligations. In its last review of market practices APRA highlighted a number of issues relating to calculation errors and summarised that when errors arise they tend to be very large and subsequently very costly.

The introduction of DSTi's Unit Pricing Workbench, as part of its HiPortfolio/3 Investment Accounting Solution, allows institutions to proactively manage unit pricing output on an 'exception' basis throughout the pricing lifecycle. Progress can then be monitored on a real time basis.

According to DSTi's CEO Australia, Ian Mathieson, "This enhancement is designed for clients who manage unit trusts for investors as well as those who provide a custodial service for unit trust managers in accordance with APRA's recommendations. Essentially the Workbench, amongst other things, allows you to create and maintain a benchmark index and measure the performance of a unit trust against that benchmark index Although this has been initially launched in the Australian market, the key aims and objectives of this solution clearly has global application."

The major improvements for DSTi's existing HiPortfolio clients implementing the Unit Pricing Workbench focus on increased user efficiency and client servicing. The HiPortfolio/3 Unit Pricing Workbench incorporates a suite of business processes designed to provide a consolidated view of unit pricing functions from start to finish.

"Investors often query the performance of a unit trust and this can take investment managers up to two hours to generate reports. The new Unit Pricing Workbench provides a Unit Trust Variance Report for instant analysis of the unit trust's assets, once a price is calculated," Mr. Mathieson continued.

"Furthermore any organisation that can provide more accurate, substantiated and timely information to an investor's queries regarding unit prices is always going to lead in the area of client servicing," he concluded.