Northern Trust's fund administration team is going online with a new tool from software giant SunGard. And Northern Trust is also adapting to the changing money fund business.

Nancy Grady Northern Trust Senior Vice President

Nancy Grady, head of fund administration at Chicago-based Northern Trust, confirms that they are now rolling out SunGard's Control Center workflow tool for fund accounting. Northern Trust had been "in a pilot phase" with the tool.

"It actually now takes paperless to a new level," Grady says. "We were the first license it."

The Northern Trust team was initially interested in Control Center "for risk purposes," Grady says, but they anticipate efficiency gains, too. They have been "on the road," showing Control Center to other legacy SunGard InvestOne clients to try to get other folks to sign up.

"The more firms that sign up, the more that SunGard can invest to enhance the product," Grady says. "We'll benefit from that."

Grady's fund accounting team at Northern Trust works with more than 200 clients, doing services for mutual funds, daily-priced collective investment trusts, limited partnerships, and more. The Control Center implementation comes even as Northern Trust is in the middle of a two-year project around the new money market fund regulations.

"It has an impact on us ... It's actually a fairly large project," Grady says of the new regs. "We have about $85 billion in money market assets that we manage ourselves, both institutional and retail."

Some Northern Trust money funds will be moving to variable NAVs, Grady confirms. There are also new website disclosures, financial reporting impacts and new filings.

The greatest challenges of adapting to the new money fund regulations, Grady says, "will be the timing of the reporting, and an increased need for more data." She praises the ICI for being a leader when it comes to the changes.

"We're well-positioned," Grady says. "We will meet all the deadlines." 

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