BNP Paribas: Reducing Risk Through Extended Support
Investment Management is constantly increasing in complexity with tighter operating requirements, higher risk management standards and new regulatory frameworks and tax regimes. In the current highly competitive marketplace, offering excellence in meeting client demands is also critical, especially in the third party administration sector. Increasingly, clients are demanding more from their providers in terms of granularity of information, speed of response and overall quality of client service. Service providers need to respond to these challenges and fine tune all aspects of their client service offering.
BNP Paribas Securities Services is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BNP Paribas Group. They are one of the world’s leading securities services providers. Operating across the entire investment cycle, they provide post-trade solutions to buy-side and sell-side financial institutions and issuers. Their network is one of the most extensive in the industry, covering over 100 markets, with their own offices in 28 countries.
BNP Paribas Securities Services was launched in Australia in 2002, benefiting from origins in the fund management industry. They currently hold assets under custody of A$261bn, ranking them as the third largest Australian custodial provider according to the Australian Custodial Services Association (ACSA). Their on-the-ground presence means they are close to their clients and close to markets. BNP Paribas’ global platforms, accessible from any time zone and with a 24-hour processing capability enable them to deliver the same high quality service across multiple locations. Their local offices incorporate the best of local systems and infrastructure as well as leveraging their proven global solutions. In an environment driving increases in operational efficiency whilst maintaining stability of core systems, ensuring full support around the clock is an obvious fit to manage risk of such an organisation.
Clearly, business critical operations cannot be allowed to fail for any significant length of time, if possible, yet, in many cases, these operations occur outside of the present DST Global Solutions standard Support hours. Accordingly, DST Global Solutions has recently launched an Extended Hours Support 24x7 (EHS) service to meet the needs of clients such as BNP. As a long-term client, BNP Paribas Securities Services Australia will be the first firm to take advantage of the new service, which will support the company’s HiPortfolio investment administration and asset servicing solution.
Ros Tricksey, DST Global Solutions Client Relationship Manager outlines how EHS makes a real difference - “The EHS service enables us to more effectively resolve priority incidents for our clients whatever the time or day. For many years, our large HiPortfolio clients have been operating overnight processing. Not having formal arrangements to access DST technical support assistance at these times could lead to additional delays to resolution. This carries a greater risk for our clients of incurring Service Level Agreement (SLA) penalties should an incident occur outside working hours."
According to Philip Hogan, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, DST Global Solutions, the decade-long relationship with BNP Paribas will be strengthened with the new service.
“DST’s investment accounting solution is the most widely used ‘platform’ in the Australian market today. Historically, DST has provided cover for priority incidents outside of standard hours on both a goodwill and a reactive basis, calling upon the flexibility of staff in multiple locations in order to service our clients. In mid 2010, we formalised this cover arrangement into the Extended Hours Support service (EHS). This is a natural progression of our service offering for our flagship investment accounting solution and is a testament to our ongoing investment in effectively supporting our client’s risk profiles.”
BNP Paribas Securities Services in Australia will now be allocated a named team of specialists across regions and disciplines. This service provides greater levels of support, utilising DST’s Global Support infrastructure supplemented by a number of subject matter experts, extending the cover provided in current SLAs on priority issues, to 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
For BNP Paribas Securities Services’ Chief Operating Officer Luc Vassort, this ensured a sound return in terms of enhancing their business risk management.
"BNP Paribas Securities Services in Australia are very happy to be able to mitigate a risk of this nature. Our investment in this service provides us with far more assurance in an increasingly demanding environment. Already having HiPortfolio database 24x7 support in place, HiPortfolio extended support was a natural progression to guarantee a more robust service to our clients."
If you would like to learn more about the EHS service, please contact Mark Hallett, Global Head of Support, DST Global Solutions, or your local DST Client Relationship Manager.
