One of the Asia-Pacific’s largest funds managers wants one platform to administer its backoffice across all 13 of its territories in the region, and for once, Australia – often an operations outlier because of its unusual taxation regime –  is to be included in the shake-up.

ING Investment Management’s Hong Kong office is co-ordinating the review of backoffice administration, which is currently provided on a patchwork of systems and by a variety of custodians across the region.

Industry sources suggest that Citi Global Transaction Services could be a frontrunner to win the multi-billion dollar piece of business, with stakeholders impressed by its rollout of a middle office platform for Dimensional Fund Advisors throughout the region including Australia.

It’s further understood that the information being collected by ING Investment Management was coveted by its then sister company, wealth manager ING Australia, prior to its takeover by half-owner ANZ and subsequent rebranding as OnePath.

The $40 billion wealth manager recently announced that JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services would be its master custodian in Australia. Onepath recently got its own HiPortfolio licence and is continuing a project to get its data off ING IM’s licence.

An ING Investment Management spokesperson played a straight bat to questions on the regional backoffice due diligence.

“Like any organisation, we are always looking for the most efficient and effective ways to operate.  We have no agreements in place to outsource back office and operations activities, either from a regional ING IM Asia Pacific or Australian perspective,” the spokesperson said.