Korea’s National Pension Service tackles data complexities with expanded mandate
The National Pension Service (NPS) of Korea is improving operational efficiencies and tackling complex data with an expanded fixed income mandate that will allow the fund to redeploy resources to higher value work and improve alpha investment decision making.
In January, BNY Mellon announced that it had completed the onboarding of NPS’ fixed income investment portfolios, which entail custody solutions as well as a securities services platform that cover global risk, institutional accounting and middle office solutions.
“The expansion of this integrated solutions offering will help NPS further optimise its global investment management process, allowing for greater focus on investment strategy,” the firm wrote in a statement.
More specifically, solutions will help NPS address issues that come with managing different data sources across asset classes and geographies at a time when asset owners are grappling with ever-changing regulations and compliance policies.
“Asset owners are increasingly looking for partners to help them uncover the value of data to drive business transformation and investment strategies,” Carin Looi, BNY Mellon’s Asia Pacific head of asset owners told AsianInvestor. “They are looking to right-risk, right-source and futureproof their data and operating models as they rethink their front-to-back investment processes.”
DATA COMPLEXITIES
A recent study by the bank found that asset managers’ biggest challenge in managing data is “aggregating it across fragmented infrastructure to create a single, easily accessible source,” Looi said.
The firm’s open architecture model allows clients to have consistent and consolidated data sets to help meet their performance, compliance and risk objectives.
“We see NPS extracting value from operational efficiencies and streamlined data that will not only allow NPS to redeploy human capital towards higher value work but also leverage a consolidated data source to drive alpha investment decisions,” added Hyon Koo Park, Korea country executive of BNY Mellon.
By entrusting middle office functions such as trade processes and validations to an external party, NPS can focus on other key areas of its business, Park said.
The announcement about the expanded mandate came after local media reported that BNY Mellon was downsizing its Korea operations as foreign financial institutions lose interest in the country.
But the bank later clarified that it would only exit the corporate trust business in the Korean market and would actively expand into other areas such as investment management, asset servicing and other investment solutions.