About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Credit Crunch is Likely to Drive Institutions to Offshoring or Outsourcing, Says Northern Trust’s Davis

Subscribe to our newsletter

The current market climate has meant that institutions are under serious pressure to cut costs and improve operational efficiency and this may mean they decide to go the outsourcing route, said Liam Davis, vice president of global data management at Northern Trust. “We need to do more with less and provide a higher level of service to our clients and offshoring is a way to reduce costs and allow institutions to focus on meeting these needs,” he explained to the FIMA 2008 delegation.

Cost containment and the requirement for operational efficiency are two common themes across the market at the moment, according to Davis. Offshoring allows for greater scalability and this makes a compelling argument, he continued. Northern Trust established an offshore captive in Bangalore in November last year and the team has been growing ever since. “I would recommend that firms fully document their operational processes and provide ongoing support to their offshore teams to ensure success,” he said. “Also, you can’t send a system offshore that is not working properly onshore.”

Cost savings of offshoring can be anywhere between 20-50%, according to Davis, based on two surveys that he has produced for his firm. Remote governance can be tricky, hhe acknowledged, but he suggested that firms retain a team onshore (much like the earlier panel) to oversee operations. Metrics and performance must be measured and both onshore and offshore operations must be running on the same platforms and in the same operating environment.

“Offshoring is a revenue saver in terms of staff, operating costs and scalability. Costs are also more predictable than recent reports would give you to believe,” he added. “It is an efficiency saver and we have been able to accommodate the massive growth that our business has experienced over the last year due to the capacity increase the offshoring has provided. We have also been enabled to do some re-engineering around the support of our reference data and inject more quality into our operations.”

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Streamlining trading and investment processes with data standards and identifiers

3 June 2025 10:00am ET | 3:00pm London | 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 Minutes Financial institutions are integrating not only greater volumes of data for use across their organisation but also more varieties of data. As well, that data is being applied to more use cases than ever before, especially regulatory compliance and ESG integration....

BLOG

Gulf Between AI Ambitions and Capabilities Remains Wide, Surveys Find

Many financial institutions and service providers remain encumbered by creaking technology systems that are preventing many from taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) data innovations. Despite organisations’ overwhelming desire to make use of AI to give them a competitive edge, many say also that they lack the data management expertise to adopt applications that are...

EVENT

AI in Capital Markets Summit New York

The AI in Capital Markets Summit will explore current and emerging trends in AI, the potential of Generative AI and LLMs and how AI can be applied for efficiencies and business value across a number of use cases, in the front and back office of financial institutions. The agenda will explore the risks and challenges of adopting AI and the foundational technologies and data management capabilities that underpin successful deployment.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...