EUROPE – Deutsche Boerse’s Clearstream arm says it is targeting asset managers and insurers with a new enhancement to its Vestima investment funds service.

Spokesman Graham Cope said Clearstream, 100% owned by the exchange company, has talked to asset managers about the new service. “We have a whole series of them lined up,” he said, though he declined to name them, except to say they were “all different shapes and sizes”.

“Every insurer and asset manager will be able to benefit from this,” Cope said, adding that exact pricing would be disclosed in February.

Clearstream said the new 'multi-domestic’ service would go live in the summer. “The service will utilize the centralized architecture provided by Clearstream's current Vestima service but will be extended to offer tailor-made services to meet the differing needs of each of Europe's main domestic markets beginning with France and Germany,” Clearstream said.

It would offer a single solution for multiple fund markets and enable customers to select their preferred lowest cost settlement routes and custody providers.

Clearstream said the service “targets industry inefficiencies” which SWIFT, the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Trading, estimates at up to five billion euros a year.

It would offer European investment funds markets a low-cost solution for domestic markets and a full service level for cross-border distribution within one platform. It said the industry could save up to 35% using the new system.

"What we have created is a solution that recognizes the difference in markets within Europe,” said Bruno Zutterling, the company’s director of investment funds.

The system features a common technology platform tailored to local markets. Clearstream currently has around 2,500 clients across Europe.