JPMorgan Investor Services live with DSTi's HiPortfolio/3 in South Africa

JPMorgan acquired Tasc Administration (Pty) Ltd (Now trading as JPMorgan Investor Services) earlier this year from Sanlam Limited and will continue to focus on institutional asset administration. JPMorgan Investor Services is South Africa's largest independent third party administrator and has 15 clients with approximately R340 billion in assets under administration.

"Our migration from HiPortfolio/2 to HiPortfolio/3 is due to the incremental growth JPMorgan Investor Services has experienced in the asset administration market," commented Hank Pienaar, managing director at JPMorgan Investor Services. "HiPortfolio/3 allows greater scalability, enhanced application resilience and recovery and will make the data within the system far more accessible using industry standard methods."

Mr Pienaar continued, "Our ability to leverage our technology and skills will enhance our strategy of establishing a scaleable platform to support our investor services growth objectives in South Africa."

Marisa Bellini, DSTi's South Africa director, said, "DSTi and JPMorgan Investor Services have established a solid technological relationship in South Africa for some time and we are pleased that HiPortfolio/3 is able to meet their exacting requirements. JPMorgan Investor Services has chosen HiPortfolio/3 to widen their system's reporting capabilities and to extend and improve its connectivity with other systems."

Separately, DST International (DSTi), the leader in business solutions for the investment management and business process management industry today announced that RBC Global Services, a division of Royal Bank of Canada, has selected HiPortfolio's new International Accounting Standards (IAS) modules for its Australian investment management operations.

The modules include the Multi-View Accounting module, Classification of Assets module, Interportfolio Transfers module and the Preference Shares module. Following the implementation of new IAS effective 1 January 2005, the modules will assist RBC Global Services with the new dual accounting and reporting requirements, as well as further management of share portfolios for its customers.

Built in DSTi's Melbourne Research & Development Centre with input from DSTi's clients around the globe, the RBC Global Services implementation is a first for Australia. The development was fully funded by DST International.

As a result of the implementation of the IAS modules, RBC Global Services will be well prepared to support its clients with their global accounting and reporting needs. The HiPortfolio IAS modules will assist RBC Global Services in replicating current records into the new Standards format and introducing new levels of functionality for share transfers and additional calculations.

According to Ian Mathieson, DSTi's Australia and New Zealand CEO, "RBC Global Services has continued to adopt DSTi's advanced HiPortfolio solutions into its business offering as they are a strong contributor to RBC's technology innovation. A benefit for implementing the DSTi International Accounting Standards modules is that they are available now and can be implemented with minimum future disruption."

"This will see RBC Global Services fully set up for the introduction of new International Accounting Standards for business next year. Further, with new enhancements it will provide greater flexibility in processing shares within portfolios, allowing for different accounting methods to be applied if need be and more intricate calculation and processing of preference shares," said Mathieson.

RBC Global Services currently uses DSTi's world class portfolio management system, HiPortfolio, and business process management system, HiBPM.