Milestone Group, the specialist provider of optimised fund processing solutions to the global funds industry, has today announced the launch of a new solution within its flagship pControl platform that provides investment managers with automated, unified oversight of all outsourced service provision.
The new Fund Oversight solution offers a single point of reference to monitor, validate and analyse business critical outputs from service providers in a timely and accurate fashion. It provides fund managers with an effective and efficient means of control, ensuring SLAs are met and service to its clients is maintained at the highest standard.
The solution provides complete, robust and transparent oversight to funds utilising outsourcing arrangements, as well as those running distributed operating models, off-shoring facilities, and centralised or local operational processing. It automates end-to-end control of oversight processes, from electronic receipt and validation of fund related data including NAVs and other outputs, through to reporting, audit preparation, exception management and escalation.
Geoff Hodge, CEO at Milestone Group said: "Organisations have actively pursued outsourcing to reduce costs and drive efficiencies into their operations, and have derived significant benefit from doing so. It has long been recognised that while processes and functions can be outsourced, financial and reputational risk cannot, but having clear oversight of these arrangements is proving increasingly difficult. We are working with a number of fund managers who recognise that the effective management of service providers is a critical function that itself can consume significant effort and resource.
"The Fund Oversight solution in pControl has been designed in response to this need," Mr Hodge continued. "It brings greater transparency and automation to the essential monitoring and management function, ensures that funds have accurate, timely and cost-effective reporting on all third-party service provision, and significantly lowers the risks incurred when outsourcing is inadequately controlled."
As well as aggregating, validating and presenting fund related data to key business stakeholders, the solution also enables users to undertake 'sanity checks' across the business and drill down into transaction and fund information where forensic examination is required. The dashboard view can be configured to provide a complete picture of all outsourced activity from multiple service providers, enabling fund managers to conduct effective comparisons and trend analysis for informed insight into suppliers' performance. Alternatively it can be tailored to give specific information on a single aspect of the outsourced provision to the relevant stakeholder, including operational executive management, board members, audit and compliance teams, and service provider relationship managers.
The Fund Oversight solution has been developed based upon pControl's core fund processing architecture that delivers enhanced end-to-end process control and efficiency to fund managers, custodians, life companies, and fund distributors servicing today's increasingly complex interfunded product structures. It enables clients to target specific efficiency, service level and operational risk management outcomes in a highly flexible, scalable and transparent environment.