Driving growth in asset management through data: Data as a revenue driver

The asset management industry is dealing with a variety of challenges, ranging from difficult market conditions, higher operating costs, declining fees, intensifying competition from passive funds, right through to the introduction of new and complex regulations. At the same time, asset managers are also looking for innovative ways to diversify their businesses, either by launching private fund strategies aimed at the retail market or integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards into their decision-making processes, to name just a few. All these dynamics are forcing asset managers to rethink their historic operating models. If companies are to adapt, however, then they will need access to excellent data. The problem is that many asset managers do not possess this data themselves, or if they do, it is often unstructured and unusable. This is where their global custodians are well positioned to help them. With many global custodians sitting on mountains of data, leading providers are now sanitising this information and turning it into useful insights and analytics for their institutional clients. From this, asset managers will be able to enhance their asset allocation processes, streamline operations, better comply with regulations and ESG requirements and bolster their retail distribution capabilities. In today’s highly crowded market, the ability to successfully make use of data could be the difference between winning and losing lucrative mandates.