A new international study of 272 capital markets leaders reveals that the operational backbone of investment management is expanding fast but struggling to keep pace with its own complexity.
The Broadening Asset Servicing in 2025 report from The ValueExchange, in partnership with ISSA and Broadridge, shows servicing volumes climbing more than 25% year over year, led by investors and brokers. However, even as volumes rise, budgets and automation levels are falling behind, creating a widening efficiency gap.
North American firms, in particular, are feeling the strain with more than a third of brokers reporting declining automation levels and higher error rates, largely driven by poor data quality.
But across all regions, up to 67% of processing errors stem from data issues rather than technology shortcomings. “Automation is only as good as the data feeding it,” the study notes, serving as a warning for financial advisors and RIAs reliant on custodians and third-party service providers for accurate corporate action data.
“Global asset servicing leaders are at a crossroads – transaction volumes and processing complexity are accelerating at a rapid pace, yet growth is constrained by legacy technology, increased risk and escalating data costs,” says Mike Alexander, president of Broadridge Wealth Management.
Custodians and asset owners are channeling transformation budgets toward tax reclaims and income events, areas that are most visible to end clients. Tax reclaims alone account for nearly 40% of automation spending among global custodians, reflecting mounting client pressure for operational efficiency and post-trade tax recovery.
Outsourcing continues to emerge as a safety valve for firms battling cost inflation and staffing shortages. Fully or partially outsourced models are now common in proxy voting and class actions, reducing cost growth by roughly a quarter and cutting error rates by more than 10%.
Technology investment, meanwhile, is being reprioritized as process re-engineering and workflow automation have delivered the strongest returns on investment over the past five years, outperforming AI and machine learning initiatives.
While generative AI and API integration remain on the radar, the most effective advances stem from cleaning and connecting data, not chasing the next digital trend.
“As firms, traders and investors demand increased real-time digital automation, and enhanced risk management, we see immense opportunity for firms to reimagine asset servicing through a single platform encompassing the entire asset service life cycle, leveraging AI, common data and strategic outsourcing,” adds Alexander.
Looking ahead, the study points to industry collaboration as the next frontier. A majority of respondents want central securities depositories to take responsibility for a “golden record” of event data, a single, standardized source that could eliminate costly inconsistencies across markets.
“The future of asset servicing depends on the industry’s ability to increase real-time straight through processing, capture tax rules and efficiency upstream, and leverage common data with the client at the center,” concludes Alexander.
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