10:57 AM
OPERATIONS NEWSFLASHES
Following a recent strategic review of its investment arrangements, Nationwide Building Society has appointed Northern Trust as global custodian for its pension assets. Northern Trust was selected ahead of five other custodians. Nationwide Building Society currently runs a pension fund with assets valued at GBP 830 million. The fund, advised by Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow, has conducted a complex review of its investment arrangements during the last 12 months and, as a result, identified that the appointment of a global custodian offered a number of benefits, including uniformed and consistent reporting.
SunGard announced that SunGard Institutional Brokerage Inc. is now a full member of Swift, the industry-owned cooperative supplying secure, standardized messaging services to 7,500 financial institutions in 200 countries. At the same time, SunGard is launching the SunGard MessageHub, a connectivity service for Swift utilizing MINT messaging solutions from SunGard Business Integration. The SunGard MessageHub will offer corporate treasuries, hedge funds, insurance companies and other SunGard clients the ability to leverage Swift connectivity and messaging under SunGard Institutional Brokerage Inc.'s Swift Business Identifier Code (BIC),
Getronics, a global information-communication company, announced an agreement with Infonet Global Corporation, a network partner of Swift, to provide planning and installation services for all permanent SwiftNet connectivity options. This agreement with Infonet addresses a requirement all Swift member banks have as they migrate, by the end of 2004, from the existing X.25, dial-up infrastructure to the next generation of Swift IP-based (Internet Protocol) communications. To facilitate the transition from X.25 to an IP-based network, Getronics will install equipment, as well as provide local access and the Netscreen Encryption Device.