Unexpected market closures, like the one we experienced recently for the funeral of former President George H. W. Bush, put the mutual fund industry in a precarious position. And while they don’t occur very often, when they do — it puts operations teams under serious...

Our employee spotlight this week, includes two great men. This year has been one of innovation, achievement, and exciting growth here at Delta Data. Some of our notable accomplishments in 2018 include the launch of new products such as FundBlast and our Proprietary Product Manager, recognition as a...

Every year, we have the privilege of bringing our clients together to talk about industry trends and discuss our latest product updates. It’s hands down the most instructive three days for us at Delta Data. They help us draw our innovation roadmap and keep our...

2018 marks the 15th year since the mutual fund industry was rocked by the worst scandal in its history: the market timing scandal. It was in September of 2003 when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed a complaint against the hedge fund Canary Capital...

The relationship between a mutual fund company and its mutual fund sub-advisor is an important one. These trusted partners are relied upon for their expertise in managing strategies and products critical to the success of a fund company. The advantages of subadvisor relationships are well...

Every year at NICSA’s General Membership Meeting, the top initiatives, technologies, and personalities in the asset management industry are presented with NICSA NOVA Awards. This year, we’re proud to announce that FundBlast won its “Innovation in Technology” Award, and are honored to have received this prestigious...

On August 31, 2018, President Trump signed an Executive Order on Strengthening Retirement Security in America. This EO directs the US Department of Labor and the Treasury to consider issuing regulations and guidance that would (1) make it easier for businesses to offer association retirement...

As a firm dedicated to helping funds and distributors “stay ahead of the change,” we’ve been following the liquidity rule closely over the past year. Starting in the late fall of last year when ICI sent a letter to the SEC urging the regulator to delay the...

Twenty years ago, email was coming into its own as a simple and effective solution for counterparty communications important information to large groups of people – a significant technological upgrade to faxes. For the fund industry, this has long been the standard for disseminating important...

Last week, I attended SIFMA’s Fintech conference in New York. I sat through panels discussing the topics of the day in financial services operations – emerging technologies, the ever-evolving regulatory landscape, you name it. Overall, it was an engaging event with interesting insights into how fintech is...

It’s indisputable that fintech is rapidly changing the landscape of financial services. It seems as though there’s a new innovation every day promising that Mutual Fund asset managers can leave their outdated legacy systems behind. Broker-dealers have been particularly hampered in recent years due to...

We recently had the privilege to host some of our clients and Mutual Fund industry leaders for a roundtable discussion in Boston. It was an opportunity for us collectively to step away from our daily workplace rituals and talk about the future of our industry....

The SEC voted on Wednesday to delay the compliance date of the classification requirement of the Liquidity Rule in what turned out to be a whirlwind of a week for the regulatory body. With a delay now formalized, fund firms with more than $1 billion...

For some people, taking a sales meeting is on par with going to the dentist — they’ll avoid it at all costs. Avoiding the dentist due to an unreasonable fear will eventually come back to haunt you, just like skipping an informative sales call could mean...

There have been multiple developments suggesting that Rule 22e-4 (“the liquidity rule”) is likely to be significantly watered down or, at least, delayed. Earlier this month, ICI sent a letter to the SEC urging the regulator to delay the compliance date by a year to ensure firms...

As we highlighted in our last post, corporate actions play a crucial role in the day-to-day management of mutual funds as well as the Broker-Dealers, Bank Trusts and Record Keepers that distribute them. Once the corporate action blast email is sent out and received by distributors, a multi-step process,...

The House finally released a draft of their tax reform plan, and for right now, it looks like they will be leaving 401(k) contributions alone. Back in April, I wrote about how the Trump administration was looking at changing the deductibility of 401(k) deferrals as a way to...

Delta Data recently attended NICSA’s 2017 General Membership Meeting in Boston to gain a deeper understanding of what’s driving innovation in the financial services industry. The day passed quickly with keynotes, panel discussions, and roundtables with industry experts, and we gleaned some interesting insights into what the...

The relationship between mutual fund companies and technology vendors has changed dramatically in the last decade. Fund shops over this time have collectively decided that the amount of due diligence and associated costs of working with dozens of vendors was too burdensome, and frankly not...

Last April I wrote a piece on what a bad idea I thought it was to Rothify 401K plans (see “Trump Administration Looking at Changing the 401K Tax Rules“). As you probably know already, participant 401k contributions are taken out of your pay before federal...

The accurate and timely tracking of corporate actions is an integral component in the day-to-day management of mutual funds and the Broker Dealers, Bank Trusts and Record Keepers that distribute them. (We’ll refer to this group as “Distributors” or “Dealers” in this blog post.) Today...

Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS) burst onto the scene in the early 2000s and revolutionized the ability for investors to move entire portfolios between financial institutions. The technical capability and usage far exceeded the expectations set forth, and it has reached ubiquity within Capital...

The Trump administration has been clear in stating its objective to reduce individual and corporate tax rates. But to fund the reduction in tax revenue, one of the items they are looking at changing is the deductibility of employee 401(k) deferrals. The Joint Committee on...

The Problem Investment companies have long allowed some retirement plans to buy Class A mutual fund shares with no up-front commission, so investors can benefit from investing with no commission as well as benefiting from lower management fees. But during routine audits in 2014, the...

Almost a year ago I posted a blog entitled SEC, Dodd Frank, Money Market Reform and FSOC: Connecting the Dots Between the Acronyms. In the post, I expressed my dismay with the passing of the Money Market Reform (MMR) laws, and how it seemed to me...

Congress still on the “outs” with DOL pick ─ who, in turn, has undisclosed Nanny Baggage to resolve. Meanwhile, Donald still has commitment issues … If you thought this was going to be a political piece, sorry to dismay but it is not. This is...

Whatever happens to the Department of Labor fiduciary rule, the mutual fund industry is moving into a “fiduciary era.” For one thing, investment advisors hope to capitalize on investors’ heightened awareness of the role of a fiduciary. For another, the backlog of regulatory change that...

In light of the upcoming DOL Rule, the SEC recently issued guidance to funds on disclosure issues and certain procedural requirements with offering variations in fund sales loads and new share classes. The SEC IM Guidance Update appears to be an attempt by the SEC to not...

The burning issue for the mutual fund industry is whether the Trump administration will curtail or rescind the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule. The nomination of Andrew Puzder for Labor Secretary, who is anti-regulation, could mean changes to the fiduciary rule as it currently stands....

Today’s news declaring Andy Puzder as Trump’s pick for Labor Secretary does not bode well for the short-term prospect of moving the date of the DOL Fiduciary Rule. For the past several weeks, the consensus in our industry was that the date could be moved by the...