NETHERLANDS - The growing trend towards fiduciary management in the Netherlands has led to increased demand among pension fund trustees for the monitoring of manager performance, according to asset servicing firm Northern Trust.

Eric Pouwels, who was promoted in March this year to manage the company's Dutch office, told IPE in an interview pension funds now want to monitor their fiduciary manager on a quarterly and even monthly basis.

He stressed, however, increased demand for such compliance monitoring has not "frustrated" the role of the custodian.

"Custodians and fiduciary managers work cooperatively on the independent monitoring aspect, for the benefit of the client," said Pouwels.

"The contact with pension funds has changed under the fiduciary trend," he explained, adding his office now has to report to both the pension fund as well as the fiduciary manager.

According to Pouwels, the custodian's independence becomes even more important to the pension fund once they have opted for a fiduciary manager.

Northern Trust's Dutch office currently supports five pension funds who have opted to go fiduciary, among which are the €6.4bn industry-wide pension fund for the private transport sector Vervoer and the €2.6bn pension fund for care insurers SBZ.

The firm says it currently works together with a number of its pension fund clients to tailor its support to fiduciary mandates.

Since launching its Dutch operation in 2006, Northern Trusts has attracted around seven new pension fund custody mandates worth €12bn in assets.

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