MAS is a centralized electronic platform designed to streamline communications among sponsors, investment managers and service providers active in managed accounts.

"As firms look for ways to expand their product line, increase their distribution outlets and lower costs, we can provide a level of efficiency that will strongly support those strategic efforts," said Ann Bergin, managing director and general manager, DTCC Wealth Management Services. "With Ebusinessware coming on board, we have another important firm committed to supporting our efforts to bring standardization and scalability to the managed accounts industry."

Ed Hoofnagle, chief executive officer of Ebusinessware, commented: "Our experience in delivering solutions that have supported other industry standardization efforts like FIX and FpML, as well as our expertise in straight-through processing, gives us a unique perspective to help drive the industry toward further adoption of this important service. DTCC has played a major role in delivering greater efficiency to so many sectors of the financial services industry, and we're looking forward to partnering with them to help bring the same results to the managed solutions industry."

Ebusinessware has extensive experience building solutions that help their customers achieve greater efficiency, scalability and better process controls. According to Hoofnagle, "We are leveraging our existing technology and also developing new capabilities that are unique to MAS. We want to help our clients achieve the full potential that the service provides, whether they access it through a simple user interface, integrate it into existing technology or build straight-through processing functionality."

MAS offers a single point of connectivity between firms that offer various types of managed accounts, including the traditional separately managed account, where a sponsor uses the expertise of one investment manager for a client's portfolio; multiple style portfe portfolios; multi-discipline portfolios; and unified managed accounts which can include different assets such as mutual funds, stocks, bonds and exchange-traded funds.

While firms currently transmit information manually or through multiple technology platforms, DTCC's MAS, an offering of DTCC Solutions LLC, a DTCC subsidiary, provides a centralized, secure platform for sharing data throughout the lifecycle of a managed account. For those sponsors that maintain numerous separate connections to investment managers, for example, "such an environment increases the potential for delays and errors when they transmit key information about investment contributions, withdrawals and termination of accounts; it also accelerates operational costs," explained David Gardner, a senior consultant on MAS and co-owner of Smart Consulting Services.