In a market environment characterised by increasing regulatory requirements, shorter settlement cycles (T+1), and growing operational complexity, asset managers are reassessing their operating models. Investment into technology, closer integration, tighter controls and enhanced scalability have become strategic priorities. ATLAS is CACEIS’ response to the investment management community’s evolving needs.

ATLAS is a further step in CACEIS’ long-term strategy of providing closely integrated asset services that leverage robust interfaces and dedicated expertise, all with a seamless and straight-forward onboarding process. By combining full investment lifecycle coverage, in-depth operational expertise and ongoing technological innovation within a regulated framework, CACEIS seeks to provide investment managers with a resilient and forward-looking solution to support them across the investment value chain, now and for the years to come. 

Through ATLAS, CACEIS enables investment managers to address structural industry challenges, including ongoing regulatory change, increased governance expectations, operational risk concerns and cost pressures.

“This offer, backed by specialist teams with over two decades of experience, ensures consistent delivery and service continuity, enabling investment managers to outsource middle-office activities with complete confidence. The objective is to streamline operating models while controlling costs, enhancing oversight and raising transparency, allowing investment managers to focus on generating investor value”, said Ramy El Houayek, Global Head of Operations, Fund Services at CACEIS.

As an asset servicing group, CACEIS provides support across the entire investment lifecycle, from portfolio management to custody. This includes portfolio management capabilities, trading desk access and execution services, risk management, middle office operations, fund administration, and depositary and custody services.

By bringing these functions together within a coherent servicing framework, the modular ATLAS solution reinforces continuity between investment decisions, execution and post-trade processing. The alignment of operational flows and data environments helps reduce overall system fragmentation, limit reconciliations, reduce error rates and strengthen end-to-end oversight.

ATLAS builds on CACEIS’ established servicing experience, integrating a best-in-class portfolio management system with CACEIS’ full post-trade capabilities and reporting expertise. It raises the STP rate across front office, middle office and custody activities, strengthens data consistency and industrialises all forms of reporting. This combines with CACEIS’ Follow-the-Sun - Data Anytime, Anywhere model that ensures 24/5 operational support, and is a key element in preparing for shorter settlement cycles such as Europe’s T+1.

> Crédit Agricole S.A. financial results

A plan built on solid foundations

Leveraging on our successful initiatives under the 2022-2025 Plan, CACEIS is well positioned to capitalise on current market developments. CACEIS is building on its key accomplishments such as the acquisition of RBC’s European asset servicing activities, thereby strengthening our position as a European leader, with significant business growth in Luxembourg and Ireland. Furthermore, CACEIS has new opportunities in Asia with a major operational centre in Malaysia supporting our ‘Follow-The-Sun, Data Anytime, Anywhere’ model.

In line with Crédit Agricole S.A.’s ACT 2028 Plan, CACEIS is establishing its objectives around three major strategic pillars: Acceleration, Transformation and Cohesion.

Acceleration: expansion and market opportunities

CACEIS is continuing to extend its European footprint with the opening of a branch in Stockholm to better serve the Nordic region and meet the needs of market participants. In Asia, we will support our European clientele while building up our Asian business, via the opening of a branch in Singapore.

CACEIS also plans to take advantage of opportunities to further develop its products and services. The major changes impacting the asset management and asset servicing sectors represent significant growth prospects for CACEIS. The focus will be on certain high value-added products and services to meet investors' growing appetite:

• Development of digital assets and fund unit tokenisation, assets which are generating increasing client interest. With its MiCA licence, CACEIS will enable institutional clients to access a secure offering for the execution and custody of their crypto-assets. The objective is to quadruple digital assets under custody within three years.
• Enhanced support for the development of new fund services, notably for ETFs and pension funds, with a range of new solutions for middle-office outsourcing and fund distribution.
• Market Solutions, as a natural complement to the core custody offering, will be extended, with a particular focus on execution services and collateral optimisation.
• To support the growth of alternative assets, the comprehensive PERES offering will be rolled out across CACEIS’s entire network.
• Finally, new custody and cash services will be launched to underpin organic growth and enhance the quality of service, particularly with regard to tax-related services.

Transformation: efficiency and commitment

Our operational model “Follow the Sun – Data, Anytime, Anywhere”, implemented in 2025, will continue its roll-out to deliver operational efficiency gains.

In parallel, the Group will extend the use of AI across all its activities.

Finally, in the context of European sovereignty, CACEIS’s ESG commitments will be key differentiators, consolidating its position as a responsible and committed partner.

Cohesion : synergies and cross-functional collaboration

CACEIS will continue to construct strategic links with other Crédit Agricole group entities, especially in the digital assets space.

Cross-functional collaboration, internal teamwork and people empowerment will be key factors in this strategic plan, enabling us to drive innovation forward, take greater ownership, and enhance client satisfaction. 

Carlos Rodríguez de Robles, Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Strategy and Innovation at CACEIS, concludes:
"CACEIS is positioning itself as a consolidator in a shifting European market. Our strength lies in our ability to anticipate change and adapt rapidly to sector transformations. We remain determined to consolidate our position as a European leader and to extend our expertise beyond Europe, with client satisfaction as our sole compass."

Quicker and easier business management

OLIS offers a new selection of widgets for tracking operations and investment flows, displaying information in real time and highlighting any upcoming deadlines for better-informed decision-making. Such clearly-displayed and timely information is a key part of what makes OLIS such an easy-to-use and efficient tool.

Sabine Iacono, Group Head of Digital at CACEIS notes that, "providing clients with up-to-the-minute data on their operations is a top priority and with every upgrade we make, OLIS becomes an even more useful tool for clients".

In terms of OLIS depositary statements, our custody experts have helped with a full redesign, which brings in a smart filtering tool along with clearer document and site layouts. This work should significantly reduce the need for users to contact our support desk.

Newly empowered access administrators

OLIS now authorises your own access administrators to manage access rights for existing users and create new users with their own specific access rights. Later this year, we will also be extending this to permissions management. We are also rolling out online forms to cut down on emails and simplify the entire procedure of user creation, and setting up access and permission rights.

"This ‘self-service’ approach is far more efficient for clients and for CACEIS - and being empowered to ‘do-it-yourself’ streamlines the entire process," explains Sabine.

A full overhaul of the payment system

A drive to revamp our payment system will bring benefits in terms of security as well as increases in speed and transparency. The modernised system will switch over to a new IT platform that also offers major advantages in terms of robustness and scalability.

In combination with the new platform, we have also worked to simplify processes, making tasks far easier to carry out for those using it on a daily basis. In response to client requests, we’ve launched new features such as rejected payment management, enhanced payment status tracking and payment validation with fewer steps. The upgraded dashboards now show both file integrations and payments in real time so you can identify issues and resolve them much faster.

This major overhaul provides much clearer overviews of all your key payment-related information, while offering major gains in terms of operational efficiency.

A better experience on the OLIS app

With a growing number of clients using OLIS via our iOS and Android app, our developers have been working on features to make it even better. The app now offers stronger security protections, while benefitting from upgrades to the UI and in terms of responsiveness – and is now better-suited to launching additional mobile-focussed services throughout 2026.

Clients across the world use the OLIS app for its accurate and timely information needed to efficiently manage day-to-day business activities.

A unified notification centre

To raise the quality of our communications, during 2026 we will implement a unified notification centre that brings together OLIS’s website, mobile applications and API interfaces.

Users will receive unified real-time notifications on all three channels for essential tasks and key events, such as NAV and payment validations, and alerts for potential investment policy breaches. The new notification system should have a significant positive impact on user response times while further reducing operational risk.

"Innovation is not just about new functionalities and our notifications centre demonstrates this. It ensures clients are informed about relevant tasks or events as soon as they occur - or even proactively in the case of imminent investment limit breaches," concludes Sabine.

User-Driven Innovation

All these developments on the OLIS platform show our commitment to enhancing the client experience through powerful and intuitive technology that fosters client autonomy and data  security. Over the coming months, the Digital & Innovation team will continue to trial new features and tools, including AI-powered technology, to assist our clients in accessing and analysing data, to better meet tomorrow’s challenging business environment.

Funds containing illiquid investments such as private debt instruments are normally ‘closed-ended’ - raising a fixed amount of capital during their fundraising period, after which they close to new investors and operate for a set duration, often ten years. With this new fund, OHV brings investors a unique proposition which offers greater trading flexibility for a traditionally illiquid private debt strategy.

We asked OHV Director, Erik Bakker a series of questions about the business, the fund and their group’s relationship with CACEIS which we have provided below.

Could you give us a quick overview of OHV’s current relationship with CACEIS and why this fund is noteworthy?
Our business relationship with CACEIS goes beyond the technology and fund accounting aspects – we have developed a strong trust-based partnership where we pool our expertise to enhance investor value. For the fund, by offering daily-tradable units for traditionally illiquid instruments within an open-ended fund, we’re opening up the investment strategy to a broader market, including institutional investors, asset managers, family offices and even retail investors.

What drove OHV to create this new type of private debt fund?
Before the Euro was introduced our main business was actually in the private loans sector, but afterwards there was a downturn in that market as Dutch investors looked to European debt and the liquid pan-European Euro-denominated Government and Corporate bond markets emerged. However, the combination of the credit crisis and the low interest rate environment around 2009 led investors to seek higher yields elsewhere, which reinvigorated the market for illiquid investments.

The combination of our long-standing expertise in the private debt market combined and a desire to open up the sector’s investment-diversifying asset class to a broader range of investors led us to design and launch our innovative, open-ended, and now daily-tradable ’Fresh Dutch SME fund’.

Which investor category is the fund designed to suit?
Our fund is designed to suit a wide variety of investor types, from large institutional investors to retail investors. Private debt instruments are not directly linked to equity markets and can provide a key source of investment diversification to help smooth out performance in volatile markets. Capital invested into a closed-end fund is often locked away for long periods and sometimes subject to high minimum investments so this open-ended fund not only provides smaller investors access to a private debt investment strategy, but also makes that strategy more liquid by enabling investors to purchase or redeem units at a daily NAV price. We believe this is an exciting and innovative investment opportunity for all types of investors.

How long has your partnership with CACEIS been active?
I have worked at OHV for a long time and our group has worked in close partnership with CACEIS and its predecessor Kas Bank for all that time. When Kas Bank operated an independent treasury function, OHV executed its own orders for various types of fixed-income instruments but then CACEIS took over all settlement tasks for us in relation to bond trading. CACEIS has also become our principal custodian for our wider private and institutional asset management business, and today, we use a broad selection of additional products and services from the group’s ever-expanding range.

What were the reasons behind your decision to maintain a commitment to CACEIS as your servicing partner?
CACEIS offers very modular and customisable servicing packages compared to other providers on the market. This enables us to create a tailored service package for OHV as we still retain various aspects of our investor relations servicing in-house, such as order execution and customised reporting. Most other depositaries only offer a standardised ‘all-in’ service package where investment managers and their investors end up having to pay for redundant services.

OHV uses CACEIS’s custody, depositary, fund accounting, financial accounting, registrar and transfer agency services, while generating and filing reports for the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) and the Central Bank of the Netherlands (AIFMD, MESRAP and MER). CACEIS also assists in drafting our key investor information documents and provides essential support for regulatory compliance matters along with input on the design of efficient investment fund structures.

Accounting, a strategic advantage

Long seen as a regulatory obligation, institutional accounting has now emerged as a key factor in fund performance. With portfolio diversification covering multiple asset classes, currencies and jurisdictions, today’s challenge is to provide investors with clear, immediately actionable information.

“Our clients expect more than just compliant services: they seek reliable, relevant and readily available information to guide their investment decisions,” says Francis Sponcet, Senior Group Product Manager at CACEIS.

Insurance companies, mutuals and other institutional investors must contend with growing data volumes, ever-shorter reporting deadlines and the need to integrate multiple national or international accounting frameworks (IFRS). In this context, secure, automated and interconnected accounting is a strategic advantage, combining regulatory compliance, operational agility and decision-making efficiency.

A comprehensive and fully-integrated solution

As a European leader in asset servicing, CACEIS provides institutional investors with wide-ranging and modular accounting outsourcing offer. Our experts currently administer over 4,000 portfolios, representing in excess of €500 billion in assets.

The offering covers the entire accounting chain, including transaction integration, valuation, net asset value (NAV) calculation, preparation of financial statements and production of regulatory reports. With industrialised processes and a highly secure infrastructure, CACEIS performs fast account closing (fast closing), multi-currency and multi-GAAP management, with easy and secure access to the information via the OLIS client portal.

A service built on security, proximity and flexibility

CACEIS’s advanced technology is matched by a strong commitment to security and data protection. As part of the Crédit Agricole group, CACEIS benefits from a solid financial foundation, which ensures the reliability and longevity of the services offered.

“Our offer relies on the dual pillars of proximity and customisation. We adapt our solutions to the specific needs of each client, enabling them to focus on generating investor value,” adds Francis Sponcet.

CACEIS’s teams carry out regulatory monitoring and share best practices to provide market-leading support for clients. This proactive approach allows the group to prepare for changes in accounting and prudential frameworks, rather than simply react to them.

As investment strategies become more sophisticated and increased transparency is demanded, institutional accounting is changing, becoming a key component of firms’ investment strategy.

“With our technical expertise and flexibility, CACEIS is transforming fund accounting into a true source of business performance and positioning itself as a trusted partner for institutional investors,” concludes Francis Sponcet.

This initiative is the outcome of a joint effort and demonstrates our determination to meet the expectations of our stakeholders as well as to be transparent about our sustainability practices.

The report is built around our three key commitments:

• Keep acting for environmental transition
• Be a responsible and committed employer
• Support our clients with confidence and security

These commitments are completed with a focus on responsible purchasing and our community initiatives.

The report will be published annually going forward to reflect our progress and ambitions.

Read the report

CACEIS is proud and delighted to receive this recognition from Asset Servicing Times - a well-respected and long-standing industry publication. Over the past year, we worked hard to perform one of the largest migrations in European asset servicing history and consolidate our strong position in the Latin American markets. With our major European migration behind us, we can now focus on further raising client satisfaction levels worldwide while continuing to develop innovative services to support our clients’ ongoing business development objectives.

CACEIS was also shortlisted for two other awards: ‘Global Custodian of the Year’ and ‘Digital Custodian of the Year.’ Congratulations to all CACEIS for this well-deserved recognition at this year’s Asset Servicing Times awards.

In the photo from left to right: Nils Mordt, Nick Brunton, Teresa Olafsson, Claude Michaux and Joe Saliba

Markets are breakneck, thrilling and can be devastatingly unpredictable as we have witnessed through recent macroeconomic swings that have sliced off portfolio performance like a sharpened pendulum. What vehicles can a patient, conservative investor turn to for peace of mind?

Enter the Long-Term Asset Fund (LTAF)

These UK-regulated vehicles are, by design, illiquid, enduring and evergreen with open-ended structures and long redemption cycles that offer a stable growth trajectory for investors seeking reliable returns from private assets – and who are content to wait. Traditionally, private asset classes aren’t easily accessible to retail investors and pension savers; an LTAF must derive 50% of its value from illiquid, long-term investments.

The democratisation of private assets is proving hugely transformative, as our research showed that 109 out of 124 fund managers surveyed offer, or will offer, some form of hybrid fund.

Since their inception in 2023, there are more than 10 umbrella and 22 sub-funds categorised as LTAFs in the UK public domain and, perhaps in recognition of the growing popularity, the FCA has shortened its authorisation process to as little as three months. LTAFs will be a key component of the UK investment landscape, and something CACEIS is well-equipped to support.

The explosion of the LTAF’s older cousin, European Long-Term Investment Fund (ELTIF) indicates the size of the opportunity. At CACEIS, our support of clients with ELTIFs in Luxembourg through our centre of excellence for Hybrid funds gives us experience on which to draw.

Approximately 70 ELTIFs were launched offshore in Luxembourg in the last five years alone. In the UK, based on the analysis, that puts the UK’s LTAFs growth at a similar level to 2022 for ELTIFs in Luxembourg.

Source: Preqin

As the LTAF market grows, we know the challenge for custodians is distilling their inherent complexity:

• Specialised expertise to understand the nuances of private assets, i.e., ownership deeds for real estate, bespoke legal instruments and their atypical valuations.
• Operational models that accommodate long, irregular and unpredictable periods of underlying capital calls and distributions.
• Strong partnership to steward the fund through strict risk management protocols, investor protection and multifaceted regulatory reporting requirements.

With longer-term goals comes longer-term vision - something we share at CACEIS. The nature of LTAFs allows investors to finance investments that match their philosophies: climate correction, infrastructure restoration, and more. Schroders, Blackrock and Aviva are some of the significant names who have entered a burgeoning market.

It’s critical to investors as evidenced in the response by investment managers that sustainability is paramount, but does the slower, illiquid nature of LTAFs match the urgency of climate change or carbon-zero goals? Promising and emerging advancements that address a deepening crisis could require rapid investment; that’s not aligned with LTAFs extended redemption periods for capital reallocation.

Nevertheless, LTAFs are a welcome solution that addresses a key need in unlocking – and thereby funding – the assets of the private world.

Good things and potentially good returns come to those who wait.

> Crédit Agricole S.A. financial results

The regulatory picture

In Luxembourg, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) was the first European regulator to approve listed and unlisted share classes within the same sub-fund and the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) followed suit in 2018.  Whilst both regulators approved this structure, there was some deviation as to how the share classes should be named.  Following industry engagement, in 2024 the CBI altered their approach and now permit the “UCITS ETF” designation to be applied at either the share class or sub-fund level, depending on the manager’s choice.  This broadly aligns with the approach taken with the CSSF.

Market penetration

In Luxembourg, market penetration of listed and unlisted share classes within the same sub-fund (what we refer to as blended funds), is significant with some of €80bn in assets.  Conversely, there hasn’t been a rush to launch blended funds in Ireland, with a limited number of asset managers doing it.  However, with the change in policy from the CBI this may act as a tailwind for a rise in the number of managers following the early adopters. 

“So why would an asset manager consider this?  And what are the benefits to both asset managers and investors?  Below are some of the key points”, explains Eamonn O’Callaghan, Group Product Manager ETF at CACEIS.

For Asset Managers

Expand distribution – Many ETF investors have a preference to buy via the ETF wrapper and so may not consider buying a mutual fund, the same can be said for some mutual fund investors.  Hence, investors are trading through their preferred wrapper and even if they like a strategy in the other, may not buy it given their preferences. Asset managers who can bridge this divide and launch blended funds, are opening a new distribution channel and selling their product to a new group of investors.  They can then reap the benefits of creating an additional distribution channel and increase fund assets.

Leverage existing infrastructure – There are considerations when launching a new UCITS ETF umbrella in terms of time and cost.  Managers who opt to launch a blended fund are leveraging off existing legal and operational infrastructure which is already in place.  This brings advantages in terms of time to market, leveraging performance history and cost savings.

Test the water – There is always the unknown when setting up a new strategy regarding investor interest.  By creating a share class, it provides the opportunity to enter the market in a relatively quick timeframe and gauge investor interest.  Thereafter the manager can consider next steps in term of launching a standalone set of products if asset growth meets or exceeds expectations.

For Investors

Enhance investor choice – by providing the option to trade in both share classes, ETF and mutual fund investors can choose to buy the wrapper they prefer depending on their personal preferences and which is the most efficient for them.

Broaden investment opportunities – with mutual fund asset managers launching a listed share class, this provides ETF investors access to an investment strategy they may not have had in a listed wrapper.  The same can be said when ETF Issuers launch mutual fund share classes.

Platform restrictions -  for discretionary fund managers or brokers who are unable to access listed products via digital platforms, may find it easier to buy the non-listed share class of an ETF. 

Before you launch

There are a number of considerations before launching, these include:

- Fund Documentation - needs to be updated to include details of the additional share classes.  It’s likely a new application form is required along with a KIID and fact sheet.

- Contracts - a mutual fund asset manager will need to contract with a number of additional parties, namely a listing agent, market-maker (MM), authorised participant (AP), common depositary, paying agent and ICSD.  Depending on their listing venue, an iNAV agent will also be needed.

- Pricing - mutual funds use swing pricing whereas ETFs apply NAV+ or actual costs.  The treatment of these costs will need to be agreed prior to launch.

- Capital Markets - a capital markets manager is a key person in the ETF team and integral to connections with the AP and MM community.  Filling the duties of this role will need to be considered by mutual fund managers. 

- Tax treatment – access to the favorable lower taxation rate which Irish domiciled ETFs enjoy on US dividends is not guaranteed if a mutual fund manager launches an ETF share class.  Conversely, for an issuer, launching a mutual fund share class may negatively impact the tax status of the ETF.

To conclude

To date, Luxembourg has seen far greater penetration than Ireland. It can be argued that there will be an uptick in launches in Ireland given the change in policy by the CBI. There are clear advantages in taking this route for asset managers and investors, namely speed to market, creating a new distribution channel and increasing choice.  Will we see a day where every ETF has a mutual fund share class and vice versa? Perhaps...

CACEIS is supporting ETF Issuers with products domiciled in Ireland and Luxembourg. “We administer more than €125bn in assets making us the 4^th largest ETF service provider in Europe.  We currently support listed and unlisted share classes for a number of asset managers and have the knowledge, and the technical and operational infrastructure in place to support your journey”, adds Paddy Walsh, Head of Business Development - Ireland at CACEIS.

The AI Factory, CACEIS's dedicated AI team, is tackling a dual objective: optimising processes through bespoke AI solutions and supporting staff in the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies. “From 2024, an in-depth analysis identified four main families of practical technological enablers: data reading and extraction, static content generation, connected content generation, and the development of complex modules,” explains Amine Sassi, Head of Unit - IT Innovation.

Since the beginning of the year, the AI Factory has been working on three strategic pillars: finalising priority technical building blocks, capitalising on existing components, and strengthening the architecture and technical capabilities.

Refining Our AI Solutions

One flagship project, currently in its final stages, involves improving inbound email management. The AI reads client requests, analyses the content, and automatically generates a proposed response, which is then checked and completed by a human agent. This process streamlines request handling, reduces response times, and ensures greater responsiveness.

Another project underway is the automation of securities and cash account reconciliation for middle office teams. This module uses advanced deep learning techniques to process large volumes of data while reducing the risk of human error. “Following a testing phase, we will launch a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to measure its impact and refine it in collaboration with our business teams,” explains Sabine Iacono, Group Head of Digital at CACEIS.

Capitalising on Existing Building Blocks for Accelerated Adoption

The objective here is to leverage solutions developed in 2024 to respond more swiftly to new requirements.

Among these solutions is the Knowledge Management module. Based on Betsie, CACEIS’s generative AI assistant used for responding to tenders (RFPs) and due diligence, this module enables document sharing, facilitating the dissemination of expertise within CACEIS and the integration of new employees. Through a multilingual chat, users can ask questions, obtain precise answers, and easily find the information they need.

Another solution is the document comparison engine. Inspired by our Prospair prospectus reading tool, this engine compares monthly reports or contracts against their reference documents. It will offer significant time savings and a high level of replicability.

Finally, “We are currently finalising the development of a tool capable of automatically generating meeting transcripts and summaries enriched with an integrated glossary, all via a simple and intuitive interface,” adds Amine Sassi.

Concurrently, the AI Factory has deployed a secure lab for data scientists and advanced users to test their prompts, as well as an internal chat that guarantees strict adherence to data sharing and security requirements.

Strengthening Architecture and Technical Capabilities

To prepare for large-scale deployment and the democratisation of artificial intelligence, an agnostic and modular architecture has been designed and will be deployed. Based on an optimised hybrid model, it combines the strengths of cloud and on-premise infrastructure. This combination allows for the processing of growing volumes of sensitive financial data while complying with strict regulatory requirements (GDPR, MiFID II, DSP2).

A Sustainable and Evolutive Strategy

CACEIS's AI strategy is based on the “Build, Operate, Transfer” principles. Once an AI project is deployed, internal teams gradually take over its evolution. This approach not only guarantees autonomy but also the capacity to adjust and evolve the technologies in line with new business challenges. The goal is to ensure continuous innovation and maximum responsiveness to emerging needs.

“AI has become a key driver of performance, security, and client satisfaction. The democratisation of AI within CACEIS is just beginning. Our teams will continue to strengthen their expertise, develop ever-smarter solutions, and foster a working environment conducive to innovation,” concludes Sabine Iacono.