For Immediate Release
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Funds processing rates reach new levels of automation
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New report from EFAMA and SWIFT confirms total industry standardization and automation rates continue to progress

Brussels, 26 May 2015 The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) today published in cooperation with SWIFT, a new report on the evolution of automation and standardisation rates of fund orders received by transfer agents (TAs) in the cross-border fund centres of Luxembourg and Ireland in 2014.

The report confirms that the automation rate and the use of the ISO standards in the fund industry increased to 82.6% (from 79.8% in December 2013), reaching a new all-time high.

The report is part of an on-going campaign by EFAMA and SWIFT to highlight the advancement of automation and standardisation rates of orders of cross-border funds. 29 TAs from Ireland and Luxembourg participated in this survey.

The report highlights include:

The total automation rate of processed orders of cross-border funds reached 82.6% in the last quarter of 2014, which represents an increase of 2.8 percentage points (p.p.) compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. The use of ISO messaging standards rose by 4.5 p.p., while manual processes and FTP rates dropped to 17.4% (-2.8 p.p.) and 33.2% (-1.7 p.p.) respectively, in the same time period.

The total automation rate of orders processed by Luxembourg TAs reached 81.3% during Q4 2014, compared to 76.6% in Q4 2013.The ISO automation rate remains stable at 57.9% in Q4 2014. The rate of proprietary FTP increased to 23.4% against 18.8% in Q4 2013, while manual orders decreased to 18.7% against 23.4% in Q4 2013.

The total automation rate of orders processed by Irish TAs remains stable with 85.6% in Q4 2014 compared to Q4 2013.

Peter De Proft, EFAMA Director General, says: As we have seen in previous years, the funds industry continues to move towards more automation and standardization in the processing of cross-border fund orders. By relying less on manual processing, fund managers thus increase the efficiency of their operations, which helps reduce their overall costs and increases the potential return of their funds, and is a very positive development.

Fabian Vandenreydt, Head of Markets Management, Innotribe and the SWIFT Institute, SWIFT, adds: The industry is making great strides towards full automation of the funds order process. Similar to other business areas, the adoption of standards and the move towards automation significantly reduces the costs and risks commonly associated with manual processing. It is great to see comparable progress in the funds industry, particularly the work SWIFT has done in collaboration with EFAMA, which is clearly paving the way to more efficient back office operations across the funds distribution process.

* Please see the accompanying attachment for the joint EFAMA/SWIFT standardisation 2014 report and the Notes to editors' section for further information about EFAMA and SWIFT.

For further information, please contact:

EFAMA
Peter De Proft
Director General
Peter.Deproft@efama.org
Tel: +32-2-513 39 69
cc: info@efama.org

EFAMA
Bernard Delbecque
Director of Economics and Research
Bernard.Delbecque@efama.org
Tel:+32-2-513 39 69
cc: info@efama.org

SWIFT
Valrie Letellier
Senior Market Manager, Marketing
valerie.letellier@swift.com
Tel:+32-2-655 39 44
cc: swift@congnitomedia.com

Notes to editors:

About the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA)

EFAMA is the representative association for the European investment management industry. EFAMA represents through its 26 member associations and 63 corporate members about EUR 19 trillion in assets under management of which EUR 11 trillion managed by over 55,000 investment funds at end 2014. Over 36,000 of these funds were UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities) funds. For more information about EFAMA, please visit http://www.efama.org/.

About SWIFT
SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,800 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in more than 200 countries and territories. SWIFT enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. SWIFT also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.

For more information, visit www.swift.com or follow us on Twitter: @swiftcommunity and LinkedIn: SWIFT
The report can be downloaded on the websites of EFAMA and SWIFT.