Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management has adopted DTCC’s Institutional Trade Processing (ITP) suite of services in a bid to enhance its offering as the US shift to a T+1 settlement cycle fast-approaches, scheduled for 28 May.
Specifically, Sumitomo is aiming to boost its trade processing through leveraging ITP’s central trade matching (CTM) platform which includes Match to Instruct (M2i) workflow.
The asset manager is also set to fully automate the post-trade processing and develop its same day affirmation capabilities for cross-border transactions within APAC by leveraging TradeSuite ID, ALERT and Settlement Instruction Manager (SIM).
Yosuke Hosokawa, associate general manager at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management, highlighted the relevance in the lead up to the settlement shift: “It is important that financial markets outside the US leverage automation to enable straight through processing and align with global standards. We are happy to collaborate with the wider industry to bring accelerated settlement to our clients.”
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust is the first Japanese asset manager to adopt the ITP services through Nomura Research Institute’s (NRI) SmartBridge Advance – the collaborative offering built in partnership by DTCC and NRI.
In addition, Japanese regulators require specifically appointed trust banks to oversee the trading activities of their underlying investment managers’, as well as being included in the pre-settlement, post-trade communications chain. With this in mind, DTCC’s SIM facilitate this and enables the “soto-soto” arrangement, helping to enable the T+1 settlement within the APAC region.
Val Wotton, managing director and general manager, DTCC ITP, said: “We are pleased to partner with Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management to bring best practice capabilities that enable accelerated settlement in the region. As we look toward the US move to T+1, achieving faster time to settlement for both cross-border and domestic transactions is more important than ever.
“ITP’s suite of services is uniquely positioned to enable counterparties to reach settlement finality faster while seamlessly connecting them to thousands of counterparties around the world.”