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Trident Trust
ame from a bad relationship with another administrator,”
“ Cwrites a client.“ Trident has been absolutely fantastic and a core strength in what we offer clients is the quality of their work. They are amazingly responsive. They are a key part of our team.” He is not alone. Trident leads the survey with scores that clear the benchmarks with ease in every service area that matters, and the client service is in a class of its own.“ Trident is always responsive to both us and our clients and takes the time to be sure the issue is settled to everyone’ s satisfaction,” says a respondent. For another, Trident is simply“ amazing, responsive, adaptable. Top-notch service all around.” A third appreciates“ the team-oriented approach and the professionalism exhibited by all members of our team at Trident Trust.” The clients are, of course, of a particular size. The Trident operational teams, which are always based in an on- or offshore fund domicile – the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Jersey, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius, Singapore, the UAE and the United States – service mainly smaller and medium-sized managers. But the clients are undeniably enthusiastic about the firm. In the core services of fund accounting(“ always reliably provide accurate reporting to us and are happy to help with explanations when necessary”) and investor services(“ Trident will bend over backwards to help get a client in the door no matter how late the client sends in doc [ uments ]”), their satisfaction is effectively complete. In the potentially awkward sphere of KYC, AML and sanctions screening, the score is even better.“ If Trident has a question about how a client completed the forms, they always ask me before contacting the client,” says one respondent. Another, who says that“ we have not had any issues to date with any investors,” adds that Trident is helping to devise“ a process whereby we know that all screenings have passed inspection. We want to know that there will not be any further reasons to go back to an investor and ask for more information.” Most varieties of reporting attract similarly high scores and positive reviews.“ Our auditors routinely tell me how responsive Trident is to their requests,” says a client of the reporting to auditors.“ Trident’ s work product is complete and well ordered.” Another says,“ We have yet to discover any material error in their calculations. When there is a discrepancy it is always our error.” A respondent who shadows all reporting in-house thinks Trident offers more reporting to managers than he needs. Even in the field of tax reporting, which many managers prefer to do themselves, Trident collects a stellar set of marks. True, there is a grumble about investor reporting.“ The turnaround time for our monthly trading package and client statements takes a significant amount of time,” writes a client.“ We rarely receive it before the 15th of each month, whereas our expectation was around the 10th of the month.” But the score, based on a near-complete turn-out by respondents, is as good as perfect. The score for regulatory reporting is not as impressive, but a client still notes that“ in a recent regulatory audit, Trident spent much time on the phone with fairly incompetent examiners, helping them to understand their reports and chasing down old data and supporting data to the reports.” Trident even has clients who think they are not paying enough:“ We have always felt we receive more value than we pay for with Trident.”
By size
94 %
6 %
Weighted average scores
PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS
Large Medium Small
Weighted average scores by service area Service area
By location
3 %
97 %
2016 2017 2018 6.41 6.58 6.46
Weighted average score
Client service 6.84 13.7 % On-boarding 6.47 13.2 % Fund accounting 6.59 6.2 % Investor services 6.69 10.5 % Reporting to investors 6.82 13.3 % Reporting to managers 6.42 9.6 % Reporting to regulators 5.46-9.4 % Reporting to the tax authorities 6.22 4.0 % Reporting to auditors 6.25 2.7 % KYC, AML and sanctions screening 6.56 8.7 % Depositary services 6.82 13.7 % Corporate secretarial services 5.84-0.4 % Middle office services 6.10 4.0 % Banking services 6.76 11.2 % Operations 6.71 9.6 %
Americas Europe and Middle East Asia
+/- the global average
Cyber-security 4.73-20.9 % Price 6.59 13.2 % Total 6.46 7.9 %
68 Global Custodian The Hedge Fund Annual 2018