Vanguard Investments Australia Ltd (Vanguard) is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Vanguard Group, which is based in the US and currently manages over US$ 1.2 trillion (AU$ 1.4 trillion) for more than 22 million individual and institutional accounts as at 30 November 2007.

In Australia, Vanguard has established a reputation as a specialist in providing index based investment solutions, managing more than AU$ 77 billion in index funds, for both institutional and retail investors.

Vanguard's decision to review its investment operations platform follows 10 years of sustained growth in Australia and the identification of significant opportunities in the wider Asia-Pacific region.

SimCorp Dimension will replace the existing legacy system, other associated applications and complex interfacing and reconciliation processes. It will provide trade capture, matching (Omgeo CTM)/settlement; pricing rules/valuations; cash management; corporate action management; investment accounting; Australian tax calculations and tax optimisation; unit pricing; SWIFT connectivity; performance and attribution; post-trade compliance; reconciliation; interfacing and reporting.

"With the rapid development of funds management opportunities in Australia and in the broader Asia-Pacific region, our imperative was to ensure our investment operations platform has the capacity and flexibility to allow the organisation to achieve its business objectives," says Ms Jacqui Cincotta, Principal and Head of Investor Services for Vanguard. "SimCorp clearly demonstrated that its single platform with common data environment and clientconfigurable process flows would facilitate exception-based management and rapid changes to support new clients, products, instruments and asset classes."