Steering clients to new opportunities
Luxembourg
At a Glance
• Implemented Multifonds in just three months
• Reduced onboarding times through automation
• Managing a bigger volume and frequency of investor transactions
• Able to offer liquid and open-ended funds, ready to leverage ELTIF 2.0
Alter Domus is a prominent provider of fund administration and corporate services within the alternative investment industry. Its main sectors are private equity, real assets, and private debt; and its core services include fund administration, transfer agency, third party AIFM and depository. Headquartered in Luxembourg, the company provides tech-enabled, integrated solutions and is one of the world’s largest private asset servicers, with more than $2.5 trillion in global assets under administration. It has 29,000 client structures, and employs 5,000 people across 23 countries in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
Established 20 years ago, Alter Domus is operating in a very different market today, explains Joanna Chuda, Head of Fund Accounting. “The availability of data has had a profound impact. Clients are now much more involved and expect full transparency on their portfolios and about how we work.” In turn, cybersecurity has become a significant challenge. “We’re dealing with huge amounts of data—both our clients and our clients’ clients—that we need to secure.”
New challenge, familiar approach
New challenges come and go, but the approach that Alter Domus takes is familiar. “We have always embraced change. We’ve been innovating since the very beginning. Twenty years ago, that meant being one of the first fund administrators to offer clients a single point of contact to cover all aspects of their fund management. Today, it means digitizing that operation, to achieve efficiencies and better synergies with our clients.”
This appetite for innovation is now being applied to the arrival of ELTIF 2.0 (European Long-Term Investment Funds). Launched in 2015, ELTIFs were designed for both professional and retail investors as a way of channeling more non-bank funding to Europe’s companies and projects through private equity, infrastructure, private credit, and real estate investments. ELTIF 2.0, which came into force in January 2024, significantly widens the scope of eligible investment assets, lowers the minimum permitted investment, increases the borrowing allowance, and reduces some regulatory obligations.
For Alter Domus, this presents a growth opportunity; but only if it could wield the right technology. “When we looked at the changes that were coming with ELTIF 2.0, and evaluated the technology we had, it became clear that we needed something better”, recalls Joanna. “Our stack was OK for managing closed-end funds. But for onboarding clients that would require more open-ended features, which are expected with ELTIF 2.0, we realized there were certain constraints. We knew that we needed a fully automated solution that can scale, rather than working on a case-by-case basis.”
Confidence and credibility
For that, Alter Domus turned to Temenos Multifonds.
Multifonds is a very well recognized partner for managing transfer agency for open-ended funds. That not only gave us confidence in the solution, but gave us extra credibility when we spoke to clients about it. It has definitely become a key selling point to win new clients.”
Joanna Chuda, Head of Fund Accounting at Alter Domus
She adds that sales pitches now come with a demonstration of Multifonds. “It enables us to better communicate all the nitty and gritty of managing a more liquid, more open-ended product; and why we are best placed to do that. At a time when regulation is adding uncertainty, being able to have these conversations and reassure prospects and clients is really important.”
She points to the SWIFT-enabled features within Multifonds as an example. “SWIFT is a prerequisite for most of our clients, and so it’s great to show them how that works in practice. We couldn’t offer that before, and now it’s one of our competitive advantages.”
Alter Domus was also attracted by the integrability of Multifonds. “It can easily connect with our technology platforms and automation tools.”
A fast start
Alter Domus went live with Multifonds in April 2024, just three months on from signing contracts. To deliver the aggressive timeline, it appointed an implementation partner, and also worked closely with Temenos Multifonds.
We received a lot of commitment from them. They really took the initiative to make sure we stayed on track, and that we were accommodating the needs of our clients. We really benefited from their expertise.”
Joanna Chuda, Head of Fund Accounting at Alter Domus
Alter Domus is already seeing the impact. “The data architecture and automation of Multifonds is definitely helping us manage a bigger volume and frequency of investor transactions. There is very limited input coming from the end user.” This automation will reduce new client onboarding times, and so allows Alter Domus to scale more quickly. “It means we can build a strong pipeline, safe in the knowledge that there won’t be any processing delays or backlogs. The sky’s the limit.”
Everything we need
A few months on from go-live, the relationship is going from strength to strength.
Temenos Multifonds is very proactive when it comes to looking at what’s happening across our markets. This is very unusual. Most tech providers only focus on the specific implementation they are working at the time. But Temenos Multifonds is always looking to bring us new opportunities.”
Joanna Chuda, Head of Fund Accounting at Alter Domus
It points to a bright future. “Multifonds is so advanced, but at the same time, so intuitive and flexible. So although there are many features that we still need to discover, especially in support of clients adapting to ELTIF 2.0, we know that everything we need is in easy reach. And that gives our clients confidence in us.”