New Database Makes Life Easier for the Mutual Fund Industry
The mutual fund industry now has its first-ever centralized source for rules-based processing and information through Mutual Fund Profile Service, which was launched last year after a major reengineering. Profile is one of the Mutual Fund Services offered by DTCC’s National Securities Clearing Corporation subsidiary.
The service is providing the industry with a solution to a longstanding challenge: how – from a central point – to easily disseminate vital information about fund securities to broker/dealers, banks and other intermediaries, and how to update that information in a way that streamlines the process for fund companies.
New functionality
The new Profile database is structured on a hierarchical model, where information entered at one level flows automatically to other levels that should contain the same information, reducing data entry and maintenance requirements. The structure begins at the Management Company level and continues logically through Share Class, Portfolio and Security Identifier levels.
Several new functions allow funds to update and delete share classes, fund portfolios and security issue identifiers. For instance, as a precaution, Profile shows a “warning” message on the DTCC WebDirect screens prior to a fund company deleting any share class name or fund portfolio name. “This feature gives funds a greater understanding of the global impact that a change or delete action will have on their relational data,” said Rita Gribben, DTCC director, Product Management, Wealth Managment Services.
More to come in 2008
“The work we’ve done is an important beginning, but there is much more we can do to tap into the value of this dynamic database,” said Ann Bergin, DTCC managing director and general manager, Wealth Management Services. “This will be a prime focus for us in 2008.”
In January, Gribben and Barbara Simon, DTCC vice president, Product Development, met with members of the Investment Company Institute’s Profile Steering Committee subgroup to map plans to further enhance the service in 2008. The group identified a list of upgrades, 20 of which will be addressed as Phase l enhancements, scheduled for delivery mid-year.
The scope of Phase 1 will include new edits within the system to allow funds to cross-check the information they have entered and validate accuracy at the appropriate hierarchy levels, adding to Profile’s functionality new reporting tools for funds. Other enhancements in development will further improve data accuracy and provide funds with new auditing and reporting capabilities.
Working with the Profile Steering Committee, DTCC also will update several key documents – the Best Practices and WebDirect User Guides, the Technical Manual and the Data Dictionary. The dictionary lists and defines all the fields in the database; these are needed by firms for operational processing and to comply with fund prospectus and distribution policies.
“By expanding Profile’s flexibility to make it easier to populate and retrieve data and maintain the database, we can expand its usefulness as an operational, regulatory and compliance tool, and enhance reporting procedures for both funds and firms,” Simon explained. @