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R E V I E W
asset owner and meet the needs of
investment data management that
custodians have not so far met,”
she said.
Pickett and her team scoured
Northern Trust’s asset owner
client base, speaking with over 40
institutions on what they wanted
from the offering, as well as collab-
orating with the bank’s client and
partner experience lab.
She then had to decide on their
software partner in order to speed
up development. This led to
Northern Trust’s decision to invest
in Parilux Investment Technology,
an investment data management
provider, and gain access to the
Parilux platform for institutional
investors.
After two years in the making,
Pickett launched the front-office
solutions platform, becoming
Northern Trust’s first client-fac-
ing public cloud application. A
34 // TheTrade // Fall 2019
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F R O N T- O F F I C E ]
unique feature of the service is that
it is custody agnostic, meaning the
business can attract asset owners
that are clients of BNY Mellon and
State Street, as well as Northern
Trust.
“We are able to provide data
management and analytics services
regardless of who their custodian
is,” Pickett added.
With six months under her belt,
Pickett says Northern Trust has
onboarded two fund of funds, two
university endowments, an OCIO,
a large family office, and is working
to bring on a foundation as well.
The platform is also expanding
its range of services to include risk
management capabilities, enabling
asset owners to review and assess
the operational strength of their
managers, including those
managing al-
ternative
strategies such as hedge funds, pri-
vate equity, real estate and direct
investments.
They also include capabilities
for limited partnership agreement
(LPA) compliance, fund fee analy-
sis, and regulatory monitoring.
“I feel this could be extremely
disruptive,” highlighted Pickett.
“Recently, we’ve faced competi-
tion not just from custodians but
software providers and other non-
banks. The current data model for
the back-office does not meet the
same needs of the front-office. Cus-
todians have tried to make custody
and fund accounting data work for
the front-office, but the data model
is insufficient especially for alter-
native investments. Our solution is
an interoperable client solution,
something custodians have
not today offered to
asset owners.”