Asia Awards 2024: Best outsourcing provider—MUFG Investor Services

Overview

MUFG Investor Services’ Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service enables global funds to operate more efficiently by outsourcing their post-trade functions. The firm combines proprietary technology with expertise to help clients streamline operations, reduce costs, and mitigate various risks. Its solutions are designed to integrate with clients’ infrastructure, enhancing straight-through-processing (STP), and minimizing disruption risks. This allows clients to concentrate on their core activities.

The solution  

MUFG Investor Services’ BPO platform, Circle, provides STP for all trade matching and settlement functions. It captures executed trades and stages all data for post-trade processing, connects to multiple downstream trade matching platforms, and uses response messaging to ensure errors are captured and resolved during the confirmation and affirmation process. When the trade match is successful, Circle uses the Swift network to instruct prime brokers and custodians.

Secret sauce  

A key differentiator for MUFG Investor Services’ BPO offering is its staff augmentation model that integrates into clients’ operations. The firm’s employees serve as an extended team for clients, ensuring stability and consistent performance while allowing them to focus on their core competencies. Its Circle platform complements this model, providing a solution that enhances operational resilience and supports clients in adapting quickly to market demands.

Recent milestones

• Launched the latest version of Circle, enhancing STP and efficiency for clients, making operations more cost-effective
• Introduced a multi-tenancy platform, allowing users to select specific modules for their service types and enabling subject matter experts to serve multiple clients, improving cost-efficiency and service quality
• Expanded global operations, offering client support in markets including Malaysia and Australia

Future objectives

MUFG Investor Services will:

• Develop AI solutions to redefine outsourcing services and improve operational efficiency
• Launch a global payments platform, enhancing cash management with a focus on FX liquidity and diverse payment channels for optimal liquidity management
• Improve its Circle platform by introducing new features and functionality to streamline and optimize BPO processes

Why they won

MUFG Investor Services, a subsidiary of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, wins its first ever category in WatersTechnology’s Asia Awards thanks to its Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service underpinned by its proprietary Circle platform, which represents the core of the firm’s outsourcing offering through the STP of trade matching and settlement functions. 

BPO services have proliferated across both sides of the market since the onset of the Covid pandemic as firms used the relative downtime of the pandemic to examine extensive aspects of their technology and operational landscapes―most notably those underpinning middle- and back-office functions―with the view to running them as efficiently, cost-effectively and robustly as possible. As much as this market is about technology, it’s also about people, a key area of differentiation for MUFG Investor Services. Judging by its recent milestones and future objectives, it’s fair to say that MUFG Investor Services has its work cut out for it in enhancing what is already a sophisticated and mature offering. Who would bet against the firm repeating this success in next year’s WatersTechnology Asia Awards?