"Reporting quality is playing an increasingly important role" | Interview with Fenion management
At the beginning of 2018, Fenion GmbH, which focuses on fund data and reporting solutions, took the leap into self-employment as a Deloitte spin-off. In an update interview with the Managing Directors Nikolaus Sernetz and Stefan Fischer, e-fundresearch.com discussed the milestones the company has achieved since then and its long-term direction.
e-fundresearch.com: Mr. Fischer, Mr. Sernetz, at the beginning of 2018 you decided to take the leap into self-employment with Fenion GmbH – a spin-off from Deloitte: What prompted you to take this step?
Nikolaus Sernetz: At the time, we led a five-person department at Deloitte that was dedicated exclusively to the topic of "fund reporting" for institutional clients. As part of our work at Deloitte, we have developed a digital reporting platform that essentially covers the functions of classic master investment management companies in performance and risk measurement. The decisive factor for perfect customer reporting is excellent data quality. Since we see a lot of potential for improvement in this area, we then built all processes around it. In the meantime, data management has become one of our main business areas.
e-fundresearch.com: According to your website, you want to "make the asset management industry much more efficient in the long term": Where do you currently identify the greatest potential for efficiency improvements? In which areas does the asset management industry still have a lot of catching up to do?
Stefan Fischer: We see the greatest catch-up potential in the areas of data management and the exchange of data. In addition to the costs and performance of funds, the quality of reporting is also playing an increasingly important role for institutional investors. We are already well positioned in the area of data quality, and we are working intensively on other RegTech topics.
e-fundresearch.com: As a relatively young company compared to established competitors, how do you intend to contribute to this change in concrete terms?
Stefan Fischer: As in many other industries, we see that FinTech companies in particular can make a big impact. We all have excellent financial know-how, have in-house resources in the areas of IT, databases, software development and not only develop our own products and processes, but are also increasingly commissioned by customers for software development. In the areas of reporting, interface implementation, process automation, and the development of custom software solutions, we have become experts and are increasingly perceived as such by the market.
e-fundresearch.com: Fenion GmbH has been in "live operation" for more than a year now: What milestones have you already achieved and how do you think the industry perceives you now?
Nikolaus Sernetz: After the spin-off, things progressed rapidly. All existing customers have decided to continue working with us. After that, we acquired some well-known new clients and completely restructured our reporting systems developed at Deloitte, especially for regulatory reporting. I think we are now quite well known on the Investment Management company side – there is always room for improvement on the investor side. We are also very proud that our strongest sales channel is the recommendations of our customers.
e-fundresearch.com: Without revealing specific names, what target groups and what cumulative "assets under reporting" (AuR) does Fenion currently have in the area of institutional clients?
Nikolaus Sernetz: Our clients now include investors from all sectors, such as pension funds, insurance companies, multi-family offices and public corporations. We work with over 60 investment management companies and create more than 20 different data formats for our clients. We are pleased with the significant assets of our clients; however, since we are in a process-driven topic, we do not see "AuR" as a suitable KPI. The most relevant KPI for us is the number of reports delivered per employee.
e-fundresearch.com: Where do you want Fenion and the industry to go in the longer term? Which automation and digitalization processes will shape the asset management industry in 5 years + by default?
Stefan Fischer: In the short term, we want to continue to grow and convince even more investors and investment management companies of our capabilities. Due to increasing regulatory requirements, we see even stronger reporting requirements for institutional investors in the future and thus automatically also for investment management companies. In the long term, we want to play an even bigger role and make the market more cost-efficient with innovative services – for investors and investment management companies.
e-fundresearch.com: Thank you very much for the interview and all the best!
