“I think we’ve come to the end of a cycle of funds managers considering their fund accounting needs, but in the super admin space you’ve got players out there using three or four different legacy systems, and instead of consolidating to one legacy system, we’re seeing an appetite to consider something new,” he said.

Mathieson added that DST would no longer actively pursue the frontoffice solutions market, describing it as a specialist field usually demanding high levels of customisation. “The Charles Rivers of the world are doing a better job of it…if an end-to-end tender came up we would probably look to partner with a specialist provider of front-office solutions,” Mathieson said, adding it was a tough market in which to grow because many start-up funds managers could get most of the tools they needed from an information service such as Bloomberg.