Milestone Group, the specialist provider of optimised fund processing solutions to the global funds industry, has announced the launch of pControl Box Management, designed specifically to address the unique challenges faced by the UK's Life & Pension companies when using a Shareholder or Manager's Box.
Developed in response to customer demand, pControl Box Management enables users to create Manager Boxes for supporting individual funds, layers of funds or groups of funds. It can be used in conjunction with standard and bespoke unit holder cash allocation methodologies, as well as trading rules for both bulking and netting of orders over long and short positions. It also enables full unrealised and realised gain / loss calculations and accounting for the Box, which can be reported on an individual or consolidated basis into a shareholder balance sheet and P&L statement. Box positions, gain / loss reporting and investment relationships are shown in real-time to provide full visibility across inter-funded structures.
"Recognising the challenges our customers were facing in the Life & Pensions market, we developed Box Management to complement our cash allocation and rebalancing module specifically to address the complexities of allocating cash in an interfunded structure," said Nathan Travell, Product Manager, EMEA, Milestone Group. "Previously, Life & Pension companies had to use spreadsheets, build their own in-house systems or duplicate transaction entry, but with pControl they now have an industrial strength and scalable solution enabling them to achieve processing efficiencies and enhanced control."
Milestone's Box Management solution is fully integrated with the pControl Cash Allocation and Rebalancing function, enabling complete end-to-end automation and generation of unitised orders and cash flows through complex interfunded structures. It supports Box investment parameters including investment tolerances, minimum and maximum transaction sizes, dealing multiples and cash limits. Real-time dashboards provide process transparency and time-based monitoring of critical deadlines and service level agreements, while a full audit trail is provided for order instructions and position history. The solution also allows users to perform compliance checks on proposed box orders and on-line enquiries for balance sheet and profit and loss reporting on existing Box unit holdings.
"Our Box Management solution is truly unique in the UK market and is another step in the evolution of pControl in the Life & Pension space," continued Nathan. "pControl's Box Management solution really gives power and control to the fund accountants by allowing them to set the parameters and tolerances that allow for full automation of their daily cash allocation function. By setting these appropriately, they can configure the Manager Boxes to perform trade aggregation prior to making decisions to create or redeem units, and making shareholder capital available to match assets and liabilities without intervention. This is just one part of the solution for Life & Pension companies provided by Milestone Group across the full range of requirements: NAV / unit pricing, cash allocation and rebalancing, unitised order management, and fee invoice processing."