The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced that Japan Trustee Services Bank, Ltd. (JTSB) and The Master Trust Bank of Japan, Ltd. (MTBJ) have gone live on the Omgeo ALERT (ALERT) for Trustee Service via global custodian Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. (BBH). The ALERT for Trustee Service connects to ALERT’s Global Custodian Direct (GC Direct) workflow for those markets where trustees are the legal owners of investment fund assets. BBH, the first custodian to onboard trustee-affiliated investment managers to the service, has been an ALERT GC Direct user since 2015.

JTSB and MTBJ will leverage ALERT for storing standing settlement instruction (SSI) data related to fund assets owned by the trust banks, and will automate the sharing of SSI data owned by global custodians for cross-border equity and fixed income trades.

“BBH is thrilled to continue our collaboration with DTCC and offer the new ALERT for Trustee Service to clients. This product enhancement enables us to onboard trustee-owned funds which were previously out-of-scope, streamlining client onboarding and SSI data management. It is well-aligned with our commitment to providing our global clients industry-leading solutions to increase controls, mitigate risk and provide a superior client experience,” stated Robert Stewart, Senior Vice President at BBH.

“Trust banks play an important role in the trade life cycle in Japan, and over the years, DTCC’s Japanese clients have continued to increase automation and standardization of their trade matching and settlement processes. With ALERT, trust banks are able to share SSI data in an automated and efficient manner among trading parties,” said Matthew Nelson, Managing Director, Omgeo Global Product and Strategy at DTCC. “By automating SSI data sharing for cross-border equity and fixed income trades, users are able to effectively leverage accurate, standardized SSI information across counterparties.”

ALERT is the industry’s single and centralized ‘SSI Utility’, exchanging SSI data within the ALERT host leveraging dedicated ISO 20022-compliant messages. This enables the global custodian or prime broker to maintain the SSI data for their clients, effectively creating a ‘golden copy’ for ALERT users. 

Today, there are over 3,000 clients around the world using ALERT to manage close to seven million settlement instructions. In Asia, there are over 500 firms leveraging the service, with more than 50 in Japan alone.