TheNorwich Unionowned Navigator platform is set to incorporate straight through processing (STP) throughout its operations, to the benefit of the 3,500 financial advisers with Navigator accounts.
The group is in the final stages of market testing the upgrade which will go live within two weeks according to Navigator general manager distribution Paul Northey.
“We haven’t officially launched our online transacting module, but we’re doing a limited market test at the moment and we’re very encouraged from the outcomes that we’ve seen so far,” he says.
It is understood a number of platform providers, while they may have front end electronic transacting abilities, use administration teams in the back-end to complete processing.
“This bypasses the need to do that and puts the information straight into our system and to the fund manager, so it should be faster, much more efficient and eliminate human error caused my manually entering data,” Northey says.
The additional feature will be available through Navigator’s n-link application, and will move adviser transactions with any of the platforms 40 listed fund managers closer to being seamless.
“It goes into our back office system which pools the transactions and processes them through to the fund manager,” he says.
The move by Navigator to pursue STP comes on the back of recent industry-wide moves towards the same goal, with the MFundEC and SuperEC projects, designed to develop STP standards in the funds management industry, recently merged into the Super Wealth and Investment Management Electronic Commerce (swimEC) initiative, which aims toward implementation of the standards.
However, swimEC came under critiscism at the recent Investment and Financial Services Association (IFSA) conference, with a general feeling that the project itself would not be enough for the industry to take the step towards STP.
