According to the report issued today by ALFI to mark ALFI’s 30th anniversary, UCITS assets have the potential to grow at a compound rate of 5% in the next three decades, with average annual net sales flows rising from €201 billion in 2017 to €860 billion in thirty years. As long as certain risk factors are addressed, this growth rate would quadruple UCITS’ asset base to over €42 trillion by the year 2048.
The report, which was produced by Broadridge, also predicts that Europe’s Capital Markets Union and local initiatives to enhance long-term savings to meet demographic challenges will encourage future growth in Europe. Outside Europe regulators are likely to wish to protect their own markets, but the strength of the UCITS brand means that the UCITS structure is most likely to be the adopted vehicle.
Denise Voss, Chairman of ALFI, says “The report, which looks at the development of UCITS since they first came into being in 1988, demonstrates the success of the brand in terms of growth of assets and its global reach, as well as its potential for solving the challenge of changing demographics as the dependency ratio doubles over the next 30 years to reach 51%[1].
She continues: “The global footprint of UCITS bodes well for the coming decade as populations in many of the newer markets are encouraged by their governments to take on the mantle of pension provision. Regulators in most non-European countries will wish to build a local fund franchise, but the regulatory structures they use are most likely to be based on UCITS. This can only be good news for UCITS when doors begin to open.
“We can also expect UCITS to be a key beneficiary of the launch of the Capital Markets Union, which aims to increase investment and the choices available to retail and institutional investors and migrate some of the vast pool of deposit savings into managed investments.
“However, we recognise that further work must be undertaken by the industry to ensure that UCITS fulfil their role of providing long-term financial stability for people and economies. A key element is to set in place effective financial education so that people both recognise the need to build their long-term wealth and know how they are going to achieve that.”
The report outlines how:
Diana Mackay, Managing Director, Global Distribution Solutions of Broadridge, concludes: “The success of the UCITS brand is remarkable but the industry cannot afford to be complacent. Like any brand it must be guarded by all those who benefit from its recognition because any lapse will be destructive not only to the pool of assets invested in UCITS, but potentially to the investors that have been persuaded to believe in the brand.”
Note: Although the observations contained in this work represent the best thoughts of the author, they do not necessarily reflect the views of NICSA or any of its member organizations. Matters addressed in this work may touch upon legal or regulatory matters, however nothing herein is intended to be or should be construed as legal advice. You should contact your own counsel in order to obtain legal advice regarding these or any other matters.
[1]European Commission, The Demographic Future of Europe – from Challenge to Opportunity. 2006
As new product solutions, distribution strategies, and technologies transform the asset management industry, organizations must evolve to keep pace.
“We are facing a lot of industry transformation on an ongoing basis,” Moderator Scott Smith, Director, Cerulli Associates, told attendees during a breakout session on the topic at NICSA’s Strategic Leadership Forum in Miami this month. Smith outlined four key trends in the area:
• A convergence between institutional and retail. “On the retail side of the business we see broker-dealer firms increasingly adding these gatekeeping units with concerns about fiduciary duties, making sure they have the best product mix out there for their advisors and making sure their advisors are sticking to it,” Smith said.
• A focus on client experience. “On the other side of the equation, we have the institutional market asking asset managers to become more client-facing — to speak to their clients, to get more involved in the Defined Contribution Investment Only (DCIO) client experience and make their portfolios better in the long term,” he said.
• Significant movement of advisors from employee-based firms toward independence. “This is a challenge for our distribution associates, because they’re working with a more dispersed advisor base,” Smith said.
• The impact of digital advice platforms. “It’s not a full-fledged disruption, but more of a complement to an advisory practice,” he said.
“Things have changed dramatically from a distribution standpoint over the last few decades,” said Dan Cwenar, President, Data and Analytics at Access Data Corp., a Broadridge Company. “One aspect you consistently hear about is the challenge induced by the focus on fees — and consequentially, you’ve seen the advisor community move toward low-cost product, whether they be passive investments, ETFs or the use of institutional shares in a retail context.”
The combination of increased revenue pressure, the expenses inherent in the current regulatory environment, and an influx of data is placing many firms in a bind. “Firms are drowning in data upon which they’re trying to analyze to make smart decisions, and yet few firms have the capital they had 20 years ago to throw at this particular problem,” Cwenar said.
According to Access Data, that’s where human-computer symbiosis can help. “AI is our friend, not our enemy,” Cwenar said. “It will make us smarter. Our investments over the last few years have been in a unified platform to bring together the institutional and retail perspective; the U.S. picture and the global picture. The ability to take data and create answers is what it’s all about.”
Katie Firth, Head of Distribution Operations & Business Intelligence at John Hancock Investments, said her firm redesigned its wholesaler territories. “It was a massive undertaking,” she said. “It wasn’t a cost-cutting exercise; we actually ended up adding more bodies. We wanted to cover our advisors in the right way.”
The exercise allowed John Hancock to determine an optimal mix of territories as well as understand their advisors and broker-dealers on a deeper level. “Making sure you follow their rules and how they would like to work with you is really important,” Firth said. “We have locations now where advisors will end up getting more wholesaler visits, because there’s a lot more opportunity in that particular area once you cover all channels.”
Kamal Bhatia, CEO & Co-Head of OC Private Capital, LLC, OppenheimerFunds, said his company came to an epiphany: “As an industry, we have overburdened our clients with information, and have given them quality with junk,” he said. “We have come to the realization that the value-add is to provide information that your client can’t readily get through a Google search.”
Bhatia said we have to completely rethink what we’re providing our clients. “The industry needs to move away from the McDonald’s model to the Chipotle model, where your clients feel empowered that they are creating what they will consume,” he said. “Business curation leads to relevancy.”
Whitfield Athey, Chief Executive Officer, Delta Data, focused on the relationship between asset managers and dealers. “How do we as a group come together to re-set the model whereby we make it easy for asset managers and dealers to work together to provide both of their strengths to the end client?” he asked. “The barriers to entry we have created for ourselves are the big things that we’re working on as a firm with our clients to slowly either dismantle, circumvent or hardwire.”
Note: Although the observations contained in this work represent the best thoughts of the individuals comprising the NICSA event panel, they do not necessarily reflect the views of NICSA or any of its member organizations. Matters addressed in this work may touch upon legal or regulatory matters, however nothing herein is intended to be or should be construed as legal advice. You should contact your own counsel in order to obtain legal advice regarding these or any other matters.
#GeneralIndustryTrends
#ProductandMarketing
#DistributionandSales
#Technology
Fund firms want to make the most of advanced technology for cost forecasting and budgeting — and for good reason. By automating the process of budgeting, accruing, and validating fund expenses, firms can increase accuracy, provide more frequent reporting and analytics, and minimize risk, among other benefits.
Nicsa members got the scoop on best practices fund companies are using in this area during a recent #WebinarWednesday event on the topic. Andrew Peddar, General Manager, Revenue and Expense Management Solutions at Broadridge Financial Solutions, moderated the panel.
Rourke Dillon, Director at Citi, said his firm is looking to scale major operational processes, and expenses is one area of concern on his list. “It’s one that’s increased in volume and complexity over the last few years, and with the diverse client base and variability that Citi has, it’s really critical to look at streamlining this process.”
Philip Blais, Senior Director of Revenue and Expense Management Solutions at Broadridge Financial Solutions, added that the challenges experienced in this space are universal, regardless of the firm’s size.
“Technology that allows both large and small firms to complete budget analysis and reconciliation and forecast their accruals more frequently — without negatively impacting day-to-day operations — will enable firms to drive down risk and be less impacted from an efficiency standpoint by increasing volumes of fund events,” he said.
From a product manager point of view, Dillon said his team strives to achieve full transparency around client workflow and the approval process in terms of payment status and supporting details. In addition, his team is looking to reduce the number of bespoke processes it has today, as well as implement enhanced reporting tools.
Dillon said a reliance on Excel and other non-industrial-strength solutions are driving firms to rethink their overall expense and payment processes — or, potentially, to outsource the activity. From a client or prospect’s perspective, he said it’s also important to move non-standard tasks to third-party administrators when possible.
Blais said data visualization and business intelligence software is becoming more relevant in the budgeting and expense space. “The ability to organize and present datasets to key decision makers, especially as complexity within the budgeting process grows and as vendor/firm relationships expand, is going to be extremely beneficial, both from a management and operational perspective,” he said.
Nicsa thanks Broadridge for sponsoring this webinar.
Note: Although the observations contained in this work represent the best thoughts of the individuals comprising the Nicsa panel, they do not necessarily reflect the views of Nicsa or any of its member organizations. Matters addressed in this work may touch upon legal or regulatory matters, however nothing herein is intended to be or should be construed as legal advice. You should contact your own counsel in order to obtain legal advice regarding these or any other matters.
#FundAdmin
#Technology
#Operations
In an increasingly globalized economy, investment firms must embrace a global perspective when it comes to compliance with regulations worldwide. But doing so is no easy task.
“When implementing a compliance program in a global environment, there’s a number of challenges that organizations face, from standardization issues in terms of contractual agreements and practices to issues with respect to cross-border offerings,” said Nicholas D’Angelo, Director, Financial Services, PwC.
D’Angelo moderated the panel, in which asset managers and financial service providers from Citi, Franklin Templeton, and Putnam Investments discussed challenges in the current environment, organizational frameworks, and leading practices.
THE CHALLENGES
Stephanie Tyler, Manager, US Transfer Agent Global Risk & Control Compliance at Franklin Templeton Investor Services, LLC, zeroed in on communication challenges.
“It’s important to keep communication flowing between the different groups you deal with, whether it be legal, compliance, operations, or sales,” she said. “But that can be challenging in a multinational organization where you’re dealing with different time zones, language issues, locations, and environments, so I think that’s why communication always bubbles to the top,” she said.
Tyler also noted that it’s also difficult to hire qualified staff in some emerging markets, especially where talent pools are limited and highly competitive. “I think that goes hand-in-hand with how you don’t always know where the regulatory regime in that emerging market is going,” she said. “Sometimes it can evolve very rapidly or sometimes it could move very slowly, and you don’t know how staffed do you need to be to meet regulatory needs.”
Mark Trenchard, Director of Operational Compliance at Putnam Investments, said it’s also a challenge to understand operational costs. “It’s difficult to fully understand and appreciate what some of those costs, often driven by regulatory obligations, might be,” he said. “Are you deriving a benefit from conducting business or activities in some of these jurisdictions?”
Trenchard added that there’s typically a desire to adopt corporate-level policies throughout the company. But when you’re engaged in business activities in different jurisdictions, merging systems can be quite the challenge.
“We deployed a new HR system and, and the reality is that we have non-U.S. employees and there are different labor laws, so there’s different functionality that needs to be supported in those systems to effectively work with our non-U.S. associates through a common system that works for everybody,” he said.
LEADING ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORKS
Diana Hanlin, Senior Vice President, Compliance, at Citi, said her organization takes a hybrid approach to its global compliance team. “We’re managed as a centralized function, but we have regional groups that have some autonomy and are able to adapt to local markets, which I think is critical,” she said. “The regional groups have to report back to that centralized function, keeping in mind that their goal is to understand the rules and regulations within those markets.”
Tyler said Franklin Templeton’s Corporate Policy Oversight Committee meets on a quarterly basis to share insights.
“We’re working toward consistency in our policy documentation, our approach, potential testing, and how we’re running programs in each of the different regions,” she said. “It’s great to have the chance to talk to not only the compliance folks but also legal representatives and business units to understand some of the challenges they see on the ground.”
Tyler added that flexibility is key in this era of sweeping regulatory change. “I think it’s important not to be married to your current structure or approach,” she said. “You may need to do a course correction along the way, so make sure you can make those changes fairly fluidly.”
Trenchard agreed. “There are scenarios where there’s a new requirement in a particular jurisdiction that may cause you to reexamine the whole activity itself and whether you want to continue to do business there,” he said. “It’s is important to evolve and work with your business partners to fully understand everything that needs to be done to operate effectively and profitably in a particular location.”
From a compliance and risk standpoint, D’Angelo said the last thing asset managers need to do is spend copious amounts of time gathering data — instead, they should focus on analyzing that data. And that’s where technology comes into play.
Tyler said Franklin Templeton is always open to exploring new tools, though finding a centralized platform is challenging. “We sometimes have to use different platforms to meet different regulatory market needs, so that is an ongoing technology challenge for us, especially in different regulatory markets that may be less mature,” she said. “But you just have to keep your eyes open because something could come on the market that will help you centralize those needs.”
It’s no secret that the wealth and asset management industry is facing rapid evolution in terms of product development and marketing trends.
As the industry continues to transform, Matt Fronczke, Director, Analytics & Consulting at SS&C Research, says future success lies in the asset manager’s ability to provide personalized investment solutions, which will require a paradigm shift in how they develop their engagement strategies.
“Distribution organizations are redefining their coverage models, their territories, the sales roles they have in your organizations, how they manage territories, and how they engage with advisors,” he said while moderating a recent #WebinarWednesday event featuring experts from The TCW Group and Columbia Threadneedle.
In this new era, Fronczke said firms are increasingly zeroing in on the advisors they can influence; using segmentation, rather than geography, to define territories; and defining a continuum of thoughtful roles aligned with advisor segments. They’re also overlapping territories to allow for resource flexibility, and turning to advisors’ needs and preference to drive engagement.
Alex McCulloch, Group Managing Director, Head of Retail Marketing at The TCW Group, said firms need to take a more targeted approach to new product development, seeking necessary feedback and buy-in earlier in the process and for more constituents, both internally and externally.
“Gone are the days of ‘build it, and they will come’ — we need to be much more focused on the relevant and unique solution here,” McCulloch said. “It’s also important to set the right expectations internally. In the past few years, rationalization and shrinking shelf space have created a longer and more arduous onboarding and adoption timeline for new product development, so honest and open internal communication is crucial.”
Leslie Walstrom, Head of North America Marketing at Columbia Threadneedle, said her group is working on leading conversations with broad capabilities rather than jumping to a five-star product.
“We start with what’s important to the people we’re serving — advisors, investors, firms that we work with — and then present a capability that might solve the problem before getting into different vehicles,” she said. “We’re essentially flipping the model on its head.”
The Power of Data
Fronczke said data and technology are becoming increasingly critical in day-to-day processes as the industry strives to become more effective. McCulloch agreed.
“We’ve spent a lot of time recently improving our market segmentation to ensure we approach interactions efficiently,” he said. “But I also think you need to be strategic and realistic in that you’re going to have to put personnel costs and resources behind that data to make it really effective. Firms that think they can just buy a data pack and on day one see impact are going to be sorely disappointed.”
From a marketing perspective, Walstrom said her team is working to align closely with segmentation within the sales team to complement their efforts from a targeting perspective. She is also focused on measuring engagement levels to determine whether the strategies executed are working.
“We’re looking not just at who we’re getting in front of, but what content people are engaging with, what they’re clicking on, and if we’re doing a paid media activity, the cost per engagement,” she said. “And if something’s not working, we’ll abandon it and try something new.”
Note: Although the observations contained in this work represent the best thoughts of the individuals comprising the NICSA panel, they do not necessarily reflect the views of NICSA or any of its member organizations. Matters addressed in this work may touch upon legal or regulatory matters, however nothing herein is intended to be or should be construed as legal advice. You should contact your own counsel in order to obtain legal advice regarding these or any other matters.
NICSA members will have the opportunity to hear the unique perspective of an industry powerhouse in an intimate setting during the Strategic Leadership Forum at the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort and Spa in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL this April.
Carla Harris is the Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisorat Morgan Stanley. Carla will share her unique perspective on multicultural innovation, the challenges facing today’s asset managers, and provide advice to younger members of the industry. Attendees will hear “Carla’s Pearls” – tools, strategies, and pearls of wisdom honed by her own experience – that have become the centerpiece for her many speeches and television appearances.
In her current role, Carla is responsible for increasing client connectivity and penetration to enhance revenue generation across Morgan Stanley. She formerly headed the Emerging Manager Platform, the equity capital markets effort for the consumer and retail industries and was responsible for Equity Private Placements. In her 30 year career, Ms. Harris has had extensive industry experiences in the technology, media, retail, telecommunications, transportation, industrial, and healthcare sectors. In August 2013, Carla Harris was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council.
Carla is author of the hit book “Expect to Win” and her newest book “Strategize To Win.” She is also an accomplished singer who has delighted audiences around the world, performed sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall, and released several albums.
Harris will share her insights with the NICSA membership at the Strategic Leadership Forum in Florida this April.
We encourage all NICSA members to take advantage of this unique opportunity to exchange business perspectives with leaders and innovators in our industry. Hone your leadership skills at the NICSA SLF, April 3-5 in Florida.
November 1, 2019 marked the inauguration of Ursula von der Leyen, the 13th president of the European Commission elected by the European Parliament. In the weeks preceding, Nicsa brought together a panel of global regulatory experts for a #WebinarWednesday event on the EU’s priorities for financial services.
Gerard Gilsenan, Senior Director, Regulatory and Investor Communications at FundAssist, moderated the discussion, which also featured experts from Fidelity International, and the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI).
CMU & GREEN NEW DEAL
Aurélie Cassou, Senior Adviser of EU Affairs at the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry, said to expect a follow up to the original Capital Markets Union (CMU) action plan, which has been delayed due to Brexit.
“Regulators, politicians, and stakeholders — for instance, the German and the French government as well as the European Fund and Asset Management Association — are pushing for a review of this CMU action plan,” she said. “We expect a new CMU action plan to be presented in May or June next year.”
She also said that climate change, biodiversity, and pollution are top priorities for the new commission, which has appointed first executive vice president Frans Timmermans to lead Europe’s Green New Deal.
“We are expecting a specific subset of this to be professional services, with a green finance action plan to be published in the next few months,” she said.
DIGITALIZATION & INVESTOR PROTECTION
Dan Hedley, Head of European Regulatory Policy at Fidelity International, focused on two areas of reform that have been highlighted as key areas by the commission: digitalization and investor protection.
Digitalization. Hedley outlined three main areas of focus within this priority:
1) The move to digital formats. “The European Commission is finally waking up to the fact that product disclosure legislation shouldn’t be on paper anymore,” Hedley said. “We think that the commission is also waking up to the fact that there is less direct-to-customer interaction than they think — the point at which those pieces of paper are actually given to customers, directly by fund managers, are few and far between.”
2) Digital planning, advice, nudging, and financial wellness tools. Hedley said there are a number of advice gaps across the EU where a face-to-face approach has faded away.
“We know that the European Commission is interested in understanding what tools already exist out there, what sorts of financial or robo advice exists, and whether they’re working well,” he said. “They are also looking at comparative tools, such as the FINRA fund analyzer in the States.”
3) Open banking. “The idea is for banks that have depositors who aren’t getting a great benefit from their deposit account to realize that there are alternatives out there — and to be tempted away from their existing bank by a disruptor bank,” Hedley said. “Asset managers can also take that data out of the banking world, and we can disrupt the banking sector by trying to get clients to move their money out of cash deposits and into on-risk assets in our funds.”
Investor Protection. Hedley said he is expecting a review of MiFID II, Europe’s distribution directive. “The commission is going to look at whether value for money disclosure is working for end customers,” he said.
BREXIT IMPLICATIONS
Antoine Kremer, Head of European Affairs at the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry, pointed to the implications of the UK’s decision to leave the EU in the light of Prime Minister Theresa May’s resignation and Boris Johnson’s inauguration.
“The parliament has voted that Prime Minister Johnson is not allowed to take the UK out of the EU without a deal, meaning a no-deal Brexit,” he said. “Therefore, there’s quite some uncertainty as to whether the United Kingdom will be in or out of the EU on November 1.
Kremer said the outcome will have a significant impact on the financial services industry. “It will sweep over to all kinds of legislation, including the capital markets union and third-country-related issues like delegation of portfolio management, for example, to the United States or to possibly the United Kingdom.”
Note: Although the observations contained in this work represent the best thoughts of the individuals comprising the Nicsa panel, they do not necessarily reflect the views of Nicsa or any of its member organizations. Matters addressed in this work may touch upon legal or regulatory matters, however nothing herein is intended to be or should be construed as legal advice. You should contact your own counsel in order to obtain legal advice regarding these or any other matters.
Affluent millennials — defined as individuals born from 1982 to 2000 who have $100,000 or more in investible assets — are a nascent but quickly expanding population, and learning how to successfully engage them is of increasing importance to asset management firms.
According to a recent study by Cogent Reports, more than a third of U.S. adults qualify as affluent investors. Millennials represent a whopping 15% of the total affluent investor population and nearly 20% of affluent investors with $100,000 to $500,000 in investible assets.
“These aren’t your average millennials,” said Linda York, Senior Vice President, Cogent Reports, Market Strategies International, during a recent #WebinarWednesday event. “The average household income of the affluent millennials … is upward of $228,000 per year.”
York kicked off the educational session, which explored insights on working with the next-generation client, with a review of the Cogent Reports research.
“One of the striking findings from our report this past year was that affluent investors, and in particular, affluent millennials, are searching for new places, new ways to invest their money other than the traditional mutual funds, CDs, and bank accounts,” she said. “In fact, we found that the millennial population is driving up the use of ETFs, separately managed accounts (SMAs), hedge funds, and other alternatives.”
The report also revealed that affluent millennial investors receive more than three times the typical outreach volume every month compared to all other generations. They also received more touches than ready-to-act investors.
“Those are the folks that are in the shopping mindset – but even in comparison to them, the millennials are showing much more activity in terms of the number and types of touches that they’re reporting and receiving from financial services providers,” York said.
Millennial investors are also eager for information and most open to digital communication. “We’re seeing that these digital touchpoints can be a real win in both situations: for the financial providers as well as their potential customers.”
Matt Schiffman, Principal, Broadridge Data & Analytics, highlighted findings from his organization’s national research study on understanding the next generation of investors.
“We found that the vast majority of millennials, roughly 69% that we surveyed, do not have or use an advisor,” Schiffman said. “And the gender split overwhelmingly is dominated by men, underscoring the need to bring more women into the conversation.”
When compared to other generations, Schiffman said millennials display vast differences in their views and attitudes toward financial advice. In terms of asset growth, millennials stand in stark contrast to their parents. “For them, it appears to be less about the stock market and more about entrepreneurship and buying into a business,” he said. “They’re also way more confident in robo-advice than previous generations.”
Millennials also anticipate receiving an inheritance more than any other generation. “Millennials have a measurable level of optimism with regards to inheriting some money, but given numerous studies on boomer spending habits, in concert with rising retirement costs like healthcare, you have to wonder if this is a well-founded, solid plan,” Schiffman said.
“Recognizing and acting on these emerging millennial trends will position financial advisors and the industry to attract and keep this huge generation of clients at a critical time in their wealth creation and loyalty-building stage,” he concluded.
NICSA would like to thank Broadridge for sponsoring this webinar.
#DistributionandSales
#ProductandMarketing
The General Data Protect Regulation (GDPR), in effect on May 25, has impacted funds, distributors, administrators and depositaries that come in contract with personal data of EU citizens, regardless of where they are based.
NICSA members received details about the regulation, industry obligations and other practical guidance during a recent #WebinarWednesday session moderated by Nitin Pandey, Senior Manager, Risk and Financial Advisory, Deloitte & Touche LLP. The panel featured esteemed experts from Crestbridge Luxembourg, DLA Piper Luxembourgand Northern Trust.
Olivier Reisch, Partner, DLA Piper Luxembourg, shared his perspective as co-chair of ALFI’s GDPR Working Group, which kicked off Sept. 2017. The group’s 60 attendees focused on considerations of various stakeholders — including management companies, TAs, custodians, lawyers and consultants —during 2-3 hour meetings over a few months before compiling a draft of the ALFI GDPR Q&A document.
“We had the privilege of meeting with the Luxembourg data protection regulator, the CNPD, at the end of February this year, where the chairs were able to get excellent feedback on the Q&A,” Reisch said. “This led them to the publication of Issue 1 of the ALFI GDPR Q&A at the end of April, and currently we are working on the second issue. We still get a lot of questions from ALFI members on how exactly certain provisions of the GDPR should be construed.”
Maria Teresa Fulci de Rosée, Head of Legal and Compliance, Crestbridge Luxembourg, discussed Crestbridge’s GDPR compliance project. The risk-based approach begins with a readiness assessment test to chart the existing situation. “Then we run several risk assessment workshops by unit to evaluate the areas of major risk and establish a roadmap — a way to schedule the measures to be taken,” de Rosée said.
Jennifer Schack, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Privacy, Northern Trust, said her company’s global GDPR program also followed a risk-based approach built off of existing programs, saving time and easing buy-in.
Another consideration was building a comprehensive and appropriate training program. “It is unrealistic to ask every employee to understand the entirety of GDPR, GLBA, the Singapore Personal Data Protection Act or multiple other privacy regulations,” Schack said. “The principles that we built hold together all these regulations under a single umbrella, so employees know exactly how they need to apply data privacy within their impacted processes.”
CONTROLLER VS. PROCESSOR OBLIGATIONS
According to de Rosée, one of the main changes introduced with the new data protection legislation is the increased role of the processor.
“What the GDPR has actually achieved is to fill the gap between the controller and the processor to the point that I am honestly not sure that there is a real difference between the two — they are very much on the same level of responsibilities,” she said.
The processor is obligated to support the controller in some instances, for example, notifying the controller without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach.
PRIVACY-ENABLING TECHNOLOGY
Though Schack said Northern Trust has always relied on technology for data loss prevention, they have leveraged a few new tools to ensure GDPR compliance.
“With GDPR, it was important for privacy to consider other technologies to appropriately operationalize our obligations surrounding records of processing, records management, data minimization and individual rights,” Schack said. “With that mind, we leveraged a few new technologies help us discover data.”
The first tool allowed Northern Trust to create data lineage across application databases to see a flow of personal data across various platforms. The second searches unstructured databases —
think network drives or sharepoint sites —to verify that appropriate security and care is being applied to those repositories.
“The overall objective with all of the tools that we use is that they are not just for privacy; they can be leveraged for information security, which is why we have a very close relationship with our information security team and we collaborate on a lot of areas, especially in the area of data discovery,” she said.
Reisch agreed that a number of tools are available for these purposes, including some which leverage artificial intelligence. In addition, CNPD has released its own GDPR Compliance Support Tool.
“There are absolutely tools on the market to support the exercise, but I wouldn’t say that in general they are widespread or systematically used — it’s still a bit in the innovation corner,” Reisch said.
#Compliance/Legal
#DataAnalytics
Washington, D.C. – April 4, 2019—NICSA announced the recipients of its 2019 Volunteer of the Year Awards. Honorees will be celebrated at the NICSA Strategic Leadership Forum held April 3-5, 2019 at the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort and Spa in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.
“NICSA’s Volunteer of the Year Awards recognize the outstanding efforts of members who are especially dedicated to serving the NICSA community. These individuals have shown exemplary commitment as volunteers, and have demonstrated a passion around furthering best practices within the global asset management industry.” said Jim Fitzpatrick, President of NICSA.
NICSA’s many topic and events committees work to provide association members with educational content, resources, and events on top-of-mind issues within the global asset management industry. On behalf of NICSA, committee members support the association’s mission of developing, sharing, and advancing leading practices among industry participants. Each year, NICSA recognizes outstanding volunteers whose sustained contributions over the previous twelve months were deemed exceptional.
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