Two major pension fund global custody mandate wins have been announced this year by RBS Trust Bank, the custody arm of Royal Bank of Scotland.

The £2.5bn ($4bn) Glaxo Wellcome Pension Plan selected RBS from a short list of five banks, in a review process handled by consultants Watson Wyatt.

Neil Lister says the appointment followed an exhaustive selection procedure. RBS had the majority of our portfolio already, and they have now taken up the proportion they did not have before this." The fund has a significant amount invested through Mercury, which uses RBS as globalcustodian, he points out. In addition, to Mercury, the fund is split among Cazenove, JP Morgan, Schroders and Legal & General.

RBS will be providing consolidated reporting to include the index fund run by L&G for the plan.

Middlesborough Borough Council's Teeside Pension Fund has made the bank sole global custodian for its £780m investments. Prior to this the work had been distributed among a number of custodians and the council wanted to consolidate this with one provider for custody and reporting. The award was made following a formal review of providers and RBS was chosen from a shortlist of four."

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