Alternative Investment Awards 2016

www.wealthandfinance-intl.com 61 Data Services Company: International Financial Data Services Name: Julian Rice, Head of Marketing Web Address: www.ifdsgroup.co.uk AI16003 International Financial International Financial Data Services (IFDS) is recognised as a leading provider of outsourced administration and technology solutions to the financial services market. We invited Julian Rice, the firm’s Head of Marketing, to talk us through how the firm came to win ‘Best Outsourced Fund Administration Services’ in our Alternative Investment Awards. IFDS utilises its global footprint, proprietary technology and servicing expertise in order to enhance the customer experience, improve opera- tional efficiencies and support product distribution for its clients. Unlike many of our competitors, we solely focus on outsourced tech- nology and administration services. This focus helps us to continuously innovate and improve the customer experience, as well as enabling us to explore potential efficiency gains within our internal operations. Our clients benefit from the economies of scale we can provide and we have proven methodologies and vast experience of large-scale data migrations. Looking to the future, we are heavily focused on several large-scale projects that will transform the operating and service capabilities of our existing clients, helping to position their businesses for future growth. Within our market currently, traditional transfer agency (TA) services are becoming ever-more commoditised, therefore we are concentrating on areas where we can add greater value to our clients, supporting them in areas such as distributor servicing, data analytics, regulatory compli- ance and operational risk management. In addition we continue to look at opportunities to evolve our operating models. Large asset managers are looking for TAs to provide a single, global operating models rather than managing several relationships across jurisdictions. Therefore, the challenge we face over the coming years is to determine the most efficient processes that incorporate local- ised legislation and regulatory requirements, whilst also endeavouring to exceed customer expectations. Other significant challenges include: continued regulatory develop- ments; anti-money laundering and client money handling requirements; and the introduction of new data protection guidelines. These will provide us with exciting opportunities moving forward, as we work to overcome these challenges and continue to provide our clients with the quality, inventive services they have come to expect from us. Excellence in Financial Data Services