9th Fund Summit
October 26, 2022
RACV City Club, Melbourne
Agenda
09.00-09.10 // Welcome and conference opening
09.10-10.00 // The Year Ahead: Positioning for 2023
This executive panel will discuss key themes for the year ahead and how investment management firms can best position for the prevailing market conditions:
- Navigating a changing market structure – have we seen the full extent and impacts of industry consolidation? What are implications for the broader market?
- Expected market and economic conditions – what next as inflation and rates take centre-stage?
- What’s coming up and in the regulatory pipeline?
- Where are the opportunities going into 2023?
Russell Mason
Partner – Superannuation Consulting,
Deloitte
10.00-10.45 // Education, advice and the role of technology
Reforms to the advice industry have fundamentally changed its shape, while an ‘advice gap’ remains for many – including the important post-retirement space. Investor needs and behaviours are also evolving.
- What are the expected outcomes of the ‘quality of advice’ review?
- How can investment product providers effectively engage and educate clients within the parameters of advice regulatory settings?
- How can firms use technology to nurture and streamline adviser and direct relationships?
10.45-11.15 // Refreshments and networking
11.15-12.00 // Winning tomorrow’s client: product opportunities and distribution in the retail segment
Multiple industry drivers have increased competition in the investment product landscape, resulting in a heightened focus on intermediated and direct investors. This session will examine what product providers of tomorrow need to offer in order to protect and grow their market share in the retail channel:
- The ‘post-retirement’ opportunity – what are the opportunities for asset managers and providers of income-type products?
- How will product and distribution evolve in the retail managed funds landscape?
- How can product providers win market share and differentiate – what products and other features are key to attracting business?
- What platforms, tools and techniques can providers use to best identify and engage customers?
12.00-12.40 // Operating model transformation – global perspectives
This session will compare and contrast asset owner operating model transformations in Australia and other key global markets. It will discuss:
- Scale, efficiency and resilience: unpacking key drivers and objectives for change
- Transformation in practice: strategy and implementation
- Different approaches to transformation: do all roads lead to Rome or are some strategies more effective than others?
- Lessons and opportunities
Laurence Jarvis (Chair)
Managing Director,
Fund Business
12.40-13.40 // Lunch & networking
13.40-14.30 // Opportunities in capital markets and implementation activities
Implementation and execution efficiencies are a key contributor to investment performance, with asset owners and asset managers alike looking to fully utilise and make more of capital markets and dealing activities. This session will discuss how firms can optimise these activities:
- Optimising exposure management and treasury functions
- Streamlining workflow and communication between the investment and the execution functions.
- Upgrading analytics, data architectures and integrations.
- Structuring and streamlining your execution model: central trading desk, pass the book trading desk or outsourced functions?
14.30-15.10 // Reviewing investment governance and operational risk
Quality of governance arrangements is a growing regulatory priority for asset owners and asset managers alike, with both ASIC and APRA reviewing oversight of investment governance and operational risk. This session will discuss best practice investment and operational oversight, including outsourced arrangements:
- Practical implications of APRA’s newly-updated superannuation investment governance standard (SPS 530) for asset owners and asset managers.
- Governance of RE arrangements, including delegating material functions; cross-border oversight; and governance of related and outsourced service providers.
15.10-15.40 // Refreshments and networking
15.40-16.20 // Changing tack: embracing ‘interoperability’ and de-centralised data management
Increasingly, firms are re-thinking the ‘Holy Grail’ of centralised data architecture due to complexity, cost and the emergence of alternative solutions.
This session will discuss the emerging trend towards de-centralisation, its governance and implementation considerations, and how firms can leverage interoperability within their service provider ecosystem. It will also examine the prospects for outsourcing and managed data services.
16.20-17.00 // Greenwashing: keeping on the right side of regulators and customers
The public at large are increasingly focused on climate and ‘ESG’ issues, while regulators are starting to investigate and act against firms over misrepresentation of ESG credentials.
The question of how ESG products are constructed and marketed therefore, has become a top priority across the sustainable investment space. Given the wide array of different, often contradictory, ESG metrics on offer, how can investment managers be assured that their products pass the ‘greenwashing’ test?
- Prospects for common metrics and taxonomy.
- To what extent can third party ratings and own research be relied upon?
- Sustainability disclosure and compliance considerations.
- Avoiding mis-selling: the implications for product, marketing and distribution teams.
17.00-18.00 // Networking reception, drinks and canapés