NAS is Australia's largest asset servicing company. Calastone Managing Director - Australia, Shannon Sweeney, said its connection to the network meant the critical mass of the Australian funds industry was now capable of transacting electronically.

"This is an incredible advancement for the Australian industry, which just 12 months ago was completing these transactions exclusively by fax," she said. "Calastone has overseen the automation of markets all around the world, and Australia has shown remarkable enthusiasm to adapt to this new way of doing business."

The first funds to go live through NAS were Ausbil Dexia Limited and UBS.

Ben Heap, Head of UBS Global Asset Management Australasia, said the global fund manager has been using Calastone in Europe for some time and is pleased that this electronic transacting capability has extended to Australia.

"Our priority is to ensure our fund management customers have the best, most efficient systems supporting their investments," he said. "Australia is an important market for our investors and the efficiencies that automation brings to our funds is a great benefit to them, and us."

Calastone has reduced the average time taken to confirm a fund transaction from up to three days to just five minutes, for participating funds. The technology is free to order senders - funds pay a fee-for-service based on the number of transactions they carry out.

Mark Reilly, Ausbil Dexia Limited's Chief Operating Officer said "Going 'live' on the Calastone Global Fund Transaction Network has already moved some client orders from a fax-based communication process into the 21st century. We anticipate a significant client transition to this instruction format in the very near future and look forward to them receiving almost contemporaneous confirmation of their transactions having been accepted and processed by our custodian. In our opinion, this development will provide greater certainty for every participant in, as well as stripping operational risk out of, the trade process"