25/08/2010 Author: Ben Haidari

SEI to offer collateral management for OTC derivatives

SEI, a global provider of outsourced asset management, has expanded its middle office outsourcing services to include collateral management for OTC derivatives, as fund managers continue to place more emphasis on counterparty risk management.

The expansion is expected to provide the firm’s asset manager clients with a better system with which to manage counterparty exposure.

As part of this process, SEI will perform daily collateral management functions on behalf of its clients, such as managing and electronically storing legal agreements, and calculating and notifying interest on collateral.

The firm has also entered into a strategic partnership with Lombard Risk, a provider of collateral management, to integrate its Colline® system into SEI’s hedge fund platform.

The new system will provide a consolidated view of daily deliverables and facilitate communication and approvals between SEI and its clients, and is expected to improve transparency by tracking assets during the workflow process.

“Investment managers continue to focus on their core competencies while at the same time striving to improve operational efficiencies, controls and transparency,” said Phil McCabe, senior vice president and solution head of SEI’s Investment Manager Services division. “Outsourcing middle office functions to a company such as SEI achieves what managers are trying to accomplish.”