Custody - Settlement

As global custodian, SNBL maintains a large network of sub-custodians and cash correspondents covering  all major markets and an important number of emerging markets.

Through these highly rated sub-custodians and cash correspondents, SNBL offers settlement facilities for the current large range of security types transacted by the investment vehicles under its administration. Its flexibility ensures that for any new market contemplated for investment, it will have in place the required infrastructure for settlement and safekeeping of assets. 

In cooperation with the various investment managers, SNBL establishes relationships with brokers and prime brokers, where necessary, on behalf of the investment vehicle, ensuring that adequate contractual documentation between related parties is in place.

Straight-Through–Processing ("STP") is a guarantee for quality, accuracy of transaction input and processing speed.

SNBL continuously aims to maximize STP by adapting its STP system to the electronic format transmission capabilities (Swift, XML files, excel files, access to website downloads) of the parties it communicates with.

The transaction settlement process is closely monitored by SNBL's global custody team. Failed trades are analyzed promptly, reported to the concerned parties (investment managers, brokers, transaction counterparties) and followed-up on a daily basis.

Investment portfolios are fed into an automated reconciliation system which ensures accurate and timely reconciliation with the asset reports received from sub-custodians.

Derivatives: hedge funds benefit from SNBL's STP technology, used for booking actively traded derivatives transactions such as futures and options and currency forwards. A large panel of derivative types are integrated into investment portfolios, with mark-to-market valuation where appropriate and daily reconciliations with brokers' position statements.

SNBL uses a state-of-the-art banking system www.eri.ch which feeds the data reflecting the investment vehicle's entire assets automatically and in real-time, into the investment vehicle's accounting books, maintained on the same system, thus ensuring 100% accuracy of the transaction data drawn from the custodian bank's into the investment vehicle's net asset value.

SNBL adapts its reporting to counterparties according to their needs and provides electronic or paper statements on, among others, cash accounts, securities accounts, transactions summary reports, failed traded reports.