Sun Life taps Citi as middle office service provider

MANILA, Philippines — Sun Life Investment Management and Trust Corp. has appointed global banking giant Citi as its middle office service provider in the Philippines.

With the partnership, Citi became the first bank in the country to onboard a middle office client, which is an industry first.

Leveraging Citi’s well-established presence and deep expertise in Southeast Asia, the landmark transaction helps move the Philippine market closer to global industry standards in post-trade related activities.

“Building on our strong existing relationship with Citi, we’re partnering with a provider whose market expertise and technical capabilities will help ensure that we can fully service the requirements of our clients for both local and offshore securities,” SLIMTC Mike Enriquez said.

Tiffin Tanseco, Philippines securities services head at Citi, said in a statement the foreign bank is excited to provide SLIMTC with a robust middle office solution that also supports the development of the local market and we stand ready to help other clients in the Philippines.

“Our middle office solution allows our clients to focus more on their core investment activities safe in the knowledge their trade settlement and operations related activities are being supported by Citi,” Tanseco said.

Citi has been providing custody and fund services including global custody, local custody, and fund accounting services in the Philippines for more than 30 years.

Launched in 2003, Citi’s middle office service supports over 750 funds in Asia-Pacific.

Citi has invested heavily in its Asia middle office outsourcing solution and employs more than 500 dedicated operations staff based in Australia, Malaysia, India and Singapore.

With over $30 trillion of assets under custody and administration and the industry-leading proprietary network spanning over 60 markets, Citi Securities Services provides clients with extensive on-the ground local market expertise, innovative post-trade technologies, customized data solutions, and a wide range of custody and fund services that can be tailored to meet clients’ needs.

Citi has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions including the Philippines. It provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

Sun Life Philippines is a diversified financial services institution now offering varied business lines including Life Insurance managed and distributed by Sun Life of Canada (Philippines) Inc. (SLOCPI), mutual funds managed and distributed by Sun Life Asset Management Co. Inc. (SLAMCI), education and retirement plans administered by Sun Life Financial Plans Inc. (SLFPI) as well as customized investment solutions for institutional clients managed by SLIMTC.

Sun Life Philippines has over five million clients and is backed by close to 2,000 employees, over 20,000 financial advisors, 84 new business offices and 80 client service centers nationwide.