New award for Clearstream’s CFF
Press release 16 December 2008
Clearstream’s Central Facility for Funds (CFF), the innovative solution launched last year to streamline the post trade processes in the cross border investment funds industry has received the award for the Best Back Office European Solution of the Year from the magazine Funds Europe.
This is the second award for CFF after the technology Award for “clearing and settlement” granted by the UK based magazine, The Banker, last June.
Clearstream designed CFF primarily for investment funds domiciled in Luxembourg, the largest market in Europe for international funds with close to € 2,000 billion in assets under management. It has also proven attractive to other funds domiciles such as Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland and the UK.
Since its launch in March 200, CFF has attracted 37 members and offers access to more than 28,000 fund classes. CFF offers an efficient and cost effective solution to the settlement and custody processes in an industry still characterized by lack of standardization, high levels of manual processing for order trading and the requirement to interface with multiple parties.
“This award shows that the investment funds industry recognizes Clearstream’s efforts in putting funds post trade processes as streamlined and efficient as those of equities and bonds”, said Philippe Seyll, Head of Clearstream’s Investment Funds business. “We will continue leading the way towards the much needed standardization of the investment funds industry post trade operations.”
CFF offers for all participating firms (transfer agents, fund distributors and fund promoters) one single set of settlement and payment instructions for all eligible funds. This accelerates and simplifies operational processes, as well as reduces risks. CFF is fully integrated within Clearstream’s existing custody and settlement services, enabling customers to benefit from the CFF service while keeping their holdings in investment fund shares fully integrated with those in other asset classes.
Clearstream designed CFF as an answer to growing market demand in Europe and in Luxembourg. Although the industry has grown 80% since 2005, its post trade area is still characterized by high fragmentation and thus operational risk. According to a study by Deloitte, the cross border investment funds industry could save at least 30 percent of processing costs and gain over € 300 million by streamlining trading, settlement and custody of cross border mutual funds.