Settlement and Custody

DVP settlement

Operational efficiency is significantly increased when the settlement is delivery versus payment (DVP) due to the simultaneous exchange of cash and investment fund shares in SWIFT message formats between fund distributors, custodians and transfer agents. Fund providers benefit from simplified and improved settlement of orders.

Benefits for fund providers 

Thanks to standardised order flows and a reduced number of distribution channels, fund providers benefit from efficiency gains related to operations, reporting, reconciliation and transaction tracking for trailer fee management. This in turn means that fund providers can enjoy straight-through processing of trades from a single counterparty and can easily identify the order issuer responsible for a particular order.

Automatic settlement enables fund providers to specify that a transaction is to be automatically generated by Vestima once the order is executed.

Custody

Clearstream also offers fund providers a wide range of custody services for investment funds.

Fund providers benefit from secure and reliable asset safekeeping with industry leading event management support, including the notification and handling of corporate actions, dividend payments and dividend re-investments. Consolidated reporting allows for streamlined reconciliation processes.

Asset Safety

As a market infrastructure, Clearstream ensures the highest standards of safety for customer assets, including asset segregation and DVP settlement. Clearstream’s interaction with fund agents is contractually regulated and depositary banks benefit from reporting on registrars. Legal opinions on the domiciles of fund registers assure customers that their beneficial ownership is recognised in the markets where their assets are held.

Clearstream’s investment fund services are embedded in the legal, settlement and custody framework of the ICSD. This enables customers to benefit from the Vestima suite of fund services while their holdings in investment fund shares are fully integrated with those in other asset classes. You can find more information in our Asset Safety section.