MutualFundWire.com: U.S. Bancorp Finishes a $150 Billion Transition

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Thursday, March 18, 2010

U.S. Bancorp Finishes a $150 Billion Transition

In perhaps one of the largest system transfers in the fund services industry, U.S. Bancorp Fund Services has now fully transitioned from its in-house accounting system to the Eagle STAR platform from accounting software company Eagle Investment Systems.

Bob Kern
U.S. Bancorp
Executive Vice President

All of the outsourcing company's 111 mutual fund accounting clients, which consists of 520 individual funds with $155 billion AUM, are now on the Eagle STAR system.

A new feature, the Eagle STAR platform now allows US Bancorp to provide its clients with daily NAV calculations.

"We now calculate 14,000 to 15,000 NAVs and convert about 365,000 tax lots a month," Bob Kern, executive vice president and director of business development at U.S. Bancorp, told The MFWire.

Joe Neuberger
U.S. Bancorp
Executive Vice President

The system transition was not an instantaneous process. Since partnering with Eagle, all new clients have been automatically put on the Eagle STAR system. Yet for existing clients, Bancorp made client by client transitions to the new accounting platform over the past two and a half years.

"For each fund family, we would run the systems parallel for at least a month, then make the seamless switch to Eagle STAR," Joe Neuberger, US Bancorp's executive vice president, alternative investments, mutual fund administration & accounting, and relationship management, told The MFWire. "It was a well thought out plan."

US Bancorp began working with Eagle Systems four years ago. At the time, Bancorp was "looking at all the systems out there," explained Kern. Using both internal and external consultants, the company decided on Eagle Systems because it offered "the best flexibility and reporting available to our customer base," Kern added.

However, Eagle STAR didn't yet have the NAV capabilities that Bancorp was looking for, so Eagle and Bancorp worked together to develop what they considered to be the best system for their mutual fund clients.

Additionally, the system has been designed to not only handle different investment products, but different types of investments, such as equities, bonds or TIPs, as well.

Printed from: MFWire.com/story.asp?s=31685

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