Aviva Investors goes live with Commcise commission management solution

LONDON - Feb. 26, 2014 - PRLog -- Aviva Investors have implemented a new multi-broker, integrated Commission Sharing Agreement (CSA) and Share-of-Wallet management software solution from Commcise. The software comprises a complete commission management suite that allows Aviva Investors to efficiently manage increasingly complex relationships with its brokers. Aviva Investors chose Commcise to help provide greater transparency over its clients' commission spend. Commcise assists investment managers, brokers and independent research providers to demonstrate improved compliance with the changing regulatory landscape and evolving market practices.

Managing CSAs has historically involved juggling spreadsheets, trade reconciliations and payment processes every month. Many firms have traditionally operated manually intensive processes but, with the increased regulation and transparency requirements, firms are now finding this process difficult to scale and monitor with any confidence. Commcise provides a browser-based, hosted in the cloud solution to this time-consuming and costly industry problem for both the buy-side and their end clients.

Katie Pollock, Counterparty Risk, Derivatives and Broker Relationship Manager at Aviva Investors says:  “We chose Commcise because it provides Aviva Investors a robust, fully audited method of managing our commission spend with more than 20 CSA brokers and covers all aspects of our CSA process: everyone involved, including Aviva Investors teams and all our brokers, can log onto the same system and record their data in one place. It replaces a complex set of processes and spreadsheets and provides instant clarity on our financial position and offers a robust solution that aligns with the industry’s direction of travel”.

 “It is increasingly important for asset and investment managers to have transparency and clarity of ownership with clients’ commission money, and to show accuracy regarding where and why commission is being spent." says Amrish Ganatra of Commcise LLP.  “Commcise integrates trade reconciliation, invoice payment, commission management, broker voting, commission budgeting and broker pack reporting into a single integrated solution and provides an independent and broker neutral answer to all of these needs enabling firms to adopt a set of best-practice business processes.”

-Ends-

Notes to editors:

Commcise LLP was founded by buy-side industry professionals – people who understand the issues and needs of the buy-side. Commcise focused on the buy-side needs because it is the buy-side clients’ commission monies that are being spent via a bundled commission rate. The founding members include the partners of Cerebra Investment Consulting Ltd, a leading buy-side investment technology consulting firm with experience of implementing complex technology solutions for more than 40 top-tier asset management firms globally.

Regulatory Background
The recent FCA Consultation Paper (CP13/17) (http://www.fca.org.uk/your-fca/documents/consultation-pap...) published in November 2013 seeks to provide further clarity on the criteria for using dealing commissions for the procurement of research. The FCA have proposed changes to the Conduct of Business Sourcebook (COBS 11.6) and have asked the industry to provide their feedback by 25^th February 2014. The Investment Management Association (IMA) have solicited feedback from it’s 200+ members and have prepared a report titled “The Use of Dealing Commission for the Purchase of Investment Research (http://www.investmentuk.org/assets/files/research/2014/20...)” in response to the FCA’s Consultation Paper. The report makes recommendations for improvements in four areas:

Budget-setting
Commission generation
Research vote process, and
Conflicts with clients.

Commcise assists investment managers to enhance their clarity and controls over the areas recommended above.

Commcise is a fully integrated and easy to use Software as a Service (SaaS) solution providing:

Trade Reconciliation – automated trade reconciliation and exception handling workflow, complete with customisable rules and flexible trade file loading for both the Asset Manager and Brokers
Invoice Management – for those independent research providers, complete flexibility to allocate across teams, fully integrated with commission budgeting and payments processing, with authorisation workflow
Commission Management – full budgeting by individual teams, integrated with the broker voting process, automated payment instructions with optional “best fit” payment algorithm for multi-broker bank accounts and simple payment reconciliation
Broker Voting – flexible voting tool for investment teams with optional authorisation levels that drives budgeting and payment process, includes dealing and operations team voting
Reporting – full share of wallet reporting across asset classes, by team, by account, by broker or provider and service, includes a complete audit trail and ownership of golden copy data

Brokers have their own access and connectivity via secure http allowing them a standard and easy to use front end to load their trade files and manage trade exceptions and payment instructions as advised by the Asset Manager.

For further information on Commcise, please go to: http://www.commcise.com

Aviva Investors is the global asset management business of Aviva plc. The business delivers investment management solutions, services and client-driven performance to clients worldwide. Aviva Investors operates in 15 countries in Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and the United Kingdom with assets under management of £246 billion at 30 September 2013.