RE-REGISTRATION SHOULD NEVER TAKE MORE THAN SEVEN DAYS, SAYS SEI’S SIMPSON

SEI’s David Simpson has said fund re-registration should never take more than seven days, arguing platforms and others in the industry unable to meet this timeframe should upgrade their infrastructure to stop consumers losing out.
SEI Wealth Platform has reduced average transfer times from 27 days to seven days over the past 18 months through signing-up to the Altus Transfer Gateway and making necessary changes to its own technology. When all parties (including the ceding counterparty) are connected, the business is now regularly seeing transfers being completed in 24 to 48 hours.
“We have invested in dramatically reducing re-registration times for end customers and can’t see why others can’t do the same,” says Simpson, Chief Relationship Officer at SEI Wealth Platform.
“While the majority of the larger platforms support electronic transfers, there are others who have not invested in this area and can at best be considered lagging behind their peers or at worst using it as a way to deliberately block the transfer of legacy assets. This completely goes against giving consumers the choice they rightly deserve.”
While some 100 organisations (the majority of which are fund managers) are members of the TeX initiative – which sets out an industry standard for re-registration – Simpson says the true benefits won’t be felt by consumers unless all in the industry upgrade their infrastructure.
“Platforms and other organisations need to prioritise investing in their technology to bring about the change needed. Only through the industry getting together and upgrading their infrastructure can we reduce re-registration times even further.”
Ben cocks, Director of Altus Business Systems commented: “We’re delighted SEI have achieved such tight integration with the Altus Transfer Gateway to automate transfer processing but also that they’ve taken the time to do the job properly. A well designed, fully integrated solution brings considerable efficiencies for administrators but more importantly delivers a great service to the end customer.”