AFTAs 2018: Best Reporting Initiative—State Street Corporation

State Street Global Exchange, the trading facility owned and run by Boston-headquartered State Street Corp., wins the best reporting initiative category at this year’s AFTAs, thanks to its ongoing work around addressing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) Investment Company Reporting Modernization Rules, which came into force in mid-October 2016. This is State Street’s second win in this category in as many years. 

If possible, buy-side firms either outsource their entire regulatory reporting functions or at the very least lean on their service providers/partners for technology and operational support, as regulatory reporting functions, like so many other back-office processes, tend not to provide them with the opportunity of carving out a competitive advantage. For over three years now, State Street has worked on developing and expanding its response to the SEC’s updated reporting mandates, especially around the two primary reporting forms: N-PORT and N-CEN. N-PORT requires registered investment companies to report information about their monthly portfolio holdings to the Commission, while N-CEN requires registered investment companies (with the exception of face-amount certificate companies) to annually report certain census-type information to the Commission. The State Street platform provides users with consolidated views of fund data and automates reporting processes—from data input to report delivery—while ensuring alignment and compliance with regulatory requirements.
The service utilizes the firm’s data warehouse (DataGX) to accept, normalize and store millions of data points across its client base. DataGX accepts not only data that State Street manages, but also data filed directly from clients and third-party vendors. The firm aggregates and processes this data, from intake all the way through to the final step of filing in XML format with the SEC. 

According to State Street, what separates its service from others on the market is its ownership of the entire data review and validation process, enabling it to identify and address any process issues. The other differentiating factor, according to the firm, is its proprietary user interface (UI), an extension of its client information portal, my.statestreet.com. The UI offers clients the ability to directly communicate with their State Street support team during the reporting process. This collaboration along with any additional supporting documentation is tracked within the audit history functionality built into the platform, ensuring all process changes are accounted for. It also allows clients to customize their review process by setting threshold alerts on month-by-month changes and assigning reviewers based on their own criteria.
Past winners of this category include Morgan Stanley (2014), and Credit Suisse, which, like State Street, won the award two years on the bounce in 2015 and 2016.