According to Calastone, the largest global funds network, 62% of asset managers’ operations still rely heavily on manual processes and obsolete equipment such as fax machines. Automation needs to be brought in to assist the UK asset management sector.

Calastone offers solutions that fully automate the fund trading process, assisting fund managers, distributors, and asset servicers in their digital transformation, and redefining how they and their clients interact with markets.

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Calastone polled 600 respondents from both developed and emerging economies around the world for the Global Funds Automation Report.

The respondents were mutual fund asset servicers or administrators, as well as mutual fund investment managers, including those who primarily outsource their operations and those that run them mostly in-house.

Asset managers in the UK that are not utilising technology are hindered from accomplishing their goals, such as improved client service and profitability, and run the serious threat of falling behind the competition.

The following three major research findings demonstrate a considerable discrepancy in how people perceive automation:

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  • 41% of UK asset managers believe their business is partly or completely automated, while 62% admit to still using fax machines. This finding indicates that there are still numerous manual parts of the transaction chain that need to be addressed because they can increase costs and risk for the sector.
  • The continual use of obsolete software and costly manual procedures runs counter to the aims of UK asset managers, who listed client service (80%), operational cost reduction (75%), and regulatory (53%) as the main drivers of their automation efforts.
  • The usage of digital forms (49%) and business processes and workplace management (45%) were the top technology objectives in the UK to help provide automation. This demonstrates the industry’s grasp of the value of automating simple but time-consuming procedures for productivity.

To aid asset managers in their digital transformation projects, these tools, however, are just the tip of the iceberg.

As opposed to the UK, Singaporean asset management organisations listed more advanced capabilities, such as DLT (46%) and machine learning & AI (54%) as being most crucial in their automation initiatives.

The shareholder experience will be dominated by automation, and personalization in this new era of seamless fund management, and many investors won’t be willing to put up with the inefficiencies of manual processes, especially as a new generation of digital investors enters the market.

Fund firms can use a variety of technologies; however, in order to achieve full digital transition and keep the UK asset management industry viable, all market participants must use the full range of technology.