EUROPE – One of the Bank of New York’s top executives has said the bank is targeting the European investment funds market, saying there is “tremendous growth opportunity”.

“We’ve always to a lot of things on the drawing board. Europe is a tremendous opportunity,” said bank president Gerald Hassell. One of those was “supporting the growth of the mutual fund industry in Europe”.

“That’s a market that’s taking off. We just see that as a tremendous growth opportunity.”

Fund trustees, he said, need similar services to pension fund trustees. The bank sought to move “beyond the traditional plan sponsor”.

The comments came as the bank announced a marketing tie-up with California-based Wilshire Associates covering analytics services.

Hassell said the deal – structured on a revenue-sharing basis - would enable the bank to provide users with risk management services, integrated into its online portal. He said the two partners were seeking “a lot” of revenue from the alliance.

And he said the fund industry could use similar analytics services in the future.

The transaction was prompted by increasing sophistication of plan sponsors, Hassell said, but denied the bank was seeking to take over the role of traditional investment consultants.

“I am confident that the combined skills, expertise and market reach of our two organisations will set a higher standard and provide clients worldwide with the premier risk and performance attribution services in our industry,” said Wilshire chairman Dennis Tito.

The Bank of New York has lost two senior executives recently. Last week saw former Europe chief Jeffrey Tessler join Deutsche Börse. And earlier this month securities servicing chief Thomas Perna resigned.

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