Neurosoft Securities Limited (NSL) has announced the successful implementation of SCANit at Baring Asset Management (Baring).
SCANit is a state-of-the-art software solution that enables organisations to eliminate the manual processes surrounding paper receipted documentation, replacing these with a single automated exception-based process.
At the end of 2007 Baring initiated a project to improve its mutual fund order processes, streamlining these processes and removing manual effort where it could. Baring processes approximately 30,000 onshore and offshore mutual fund orders per month, received from a core distributor base of some 300 distributors. Approximately 90% of these orders are received in a multitude of formats via Fax.
Nick Le Brun, Head of Mutual Fund Dealing at Baring, comments, "Our initial intention was to try and improve upon what we already had in place. This meant exploring ways in which the manual input of a trade order into our Agent's platform could be accelerated. This completely changed once we had seen SCANit and realised what could be achieved. The three key attributes that stood out were 1) the speed at which information could be interpreted and presented to the user for verification 2) the speed at which exceptions could be managed through the SCANit user interface and 3) the fact that we could generate MT502 messages for dispatch to our TA. These three things combined have enabled us to:
- Make a 30% reduction in resource required to process deals manually
- Manage a 3-fold increase in processing volumes in a single location
David Baxter, Business Development Director at NSL comments, "Baring has proven that through the deployment of SCANit, substantial improvements can be made in an industry heavily dependent upon manual input from paper sources. Whilst 'standards' teams continue to do sterling work in trying to define a standard and work with distributors to encourage them to adopt such standards, Baring has shown that automaauauautomation can still be achieved without the need for distributors to alter existing practices.
Paul Savage Head of Investment Operations at Baring comments, "We were looking for a practical solution, something that could be deployed in order to improve our processes today not tomorrow. SCANit has helped achieve this and has also enabled us to exceed initial expectations."