Milestone Group’s unit pricing platform, pControl, has added Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) and National Custodian Services (NCS) to its list of institutional clients.
pControl is an integrated application platform that provides an end-to-end processing system for funds managers, life companies and administrators. At QIC, pControl will replace the in-house systems for unit pricing and validations, cash allocation, and unitised order management, as well as related accounting, tax processing, and reconciliations.
Darren Mundie, general operations manager at QIC said pControl was chosen after an extensive review: “It was the only solution that could deal with [QIC’s] full set of requirements and integrate seamlessly with our custody model.” QIC plans to go live with pControl by the second quarter of 2009. NCS, which incidentally is the custodian for QIC, signalled its plans to implement pControl last November and confirmed in June. NAB was unable to comment on the decision, but it is understood that the initial focus will be upon unit pricing.
Ray Lester, NAB Custody’s director of delivery services, told Investment & Technology in November that pControl would give the custodian the ability to manage accruals – such as funds management fees, custody fees and taxation figures – into the unit price on an automated basis. He added that the system would also enable several enhanced reporting capabilities, such as the implementation of security-level attribution and comparisons against benchmarks.
Geoff Hodge, chief executive at Milestone Group said the main benefits of the system for a custodian would be improved efficiency, reduced operational risk and improved service delivery to clients. According to Milestone Group, pControl is increasingly being recognised as the fund processing platform of choice for leading market players. It is now utilised in six countries.
