Manama: Sico Funds Services Company (SFS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bahraini wholesale bank Securities & Investment Company (Sico) has been named best custodian in the GCC by the World Finance GCC Investment & Development Awards 2016.
SFS was selected from a final shortlist of nominees comprising four global and regional financial institutions.
With its roots going back to 1998 when Sico established an in-house custody unit, SFS was created in 2004 by spinning off this unit as an independent, specialised custody and fund administration firm.
The operations and services of SFS are fully segregated from its parent company, while its relationship with Sico’s brokerage and asset management divisions is conducted strictly on an arm’s length basis.
The core solutions provided by SFS cover all aspects of custody, fund administration, registrar and reporting solutions.
SFS chairwoman and Sico chief executive Najla Al Shirawi said the “well-deserved recognition” was due to the SFS team’s “professionalism and client-centric approach resulting in the company developing into a successful and highly-respected regional custodian”.
Despite increasingly challenging and competitive market conditions, SFS continues to win new mandates from leading regional financial institutions.
Significantly, assets under custody with SFS have grown from $265 million in 2004 to $4.64 billion as of September 2016, which, said Ms Al Shirawi was “a remarkable achievement”.
The annual World Finance Awards were introduced in 2010 to recognise leading GCC financial institutions who are driving development and prosperity.
Winners are selected by a stringent assessment and evaluation process involving readership voting and short-listing by a panel of experienced business journalists.
Selection criteria include leadership and innovation; a forward-looking competitive strategy, quality of service and delivery; corporate governance; and transparency and disclosure.
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