The alternative assets industry is significantly transforming as enterprises face mounting pressures from exponential Assets Under Management (AUM) growth, heightened regulatory scrutiny, and increasing operational complexities. With global alternatives on track to surpass US$30 trillion in AUM by 2030, asset managers must upgrade their legacy infrastructure to support modular, cloud-native platforms capable of delivering near-instant reporting, ESG transparency, and digital fund distribution. Regulatory developments, such as the SEC’s 2025 private fund rules and Europe’s AIFMD II, are catalyzing this shift, enforcing tighter requirements around liquidity, performance disclosure, and investor protection. This report provides a comprehensive view of how alternative asset firms – alongside fund administrators, custodians, brokers, and Global System Integrators (GSIs) – are reshaping their IT strategies. Key themes include the adoption of AI-powered NAV and fee engines, real-time data fabrics, RegTech rule engines, and tokenization-ready fund structures. The study explores technology priorities across asset classes such as private equity, hedge funds, real estate, infrastructure, and private credit, highlighting use cases from algorithmic trading to ESG-led carbon dashboards. It also maps strategic actions for stakeholders seeking to capture demand from wealth channels and improve agility across investment and compliance functions. The report offers a detailed roadmap for technology modernization and ecosystem collaboration to ensure long-term competitiveness in a rapidly evolving market.

The private capital market is experiencing an overhaul in terms of increasing margin pressures, rising competition from non-traditional players, consolidation in the industry, talent war, and a stringent regulatory environment, resulting in seminal shifts in the fund management business. Fund managers are resolving these challenges by targeting new investor types, entering different jurisdictions, and enhancing their product suites to refine their top lines and improving efficiencies to maintain their bottom lines. As fund managers strive to scale their businesses and thrive in this evolving macroeconomic landscape, the need for optimum value delivery is gaining importance and an effective fund operating model is gaining traction. This viewpoint will enable fund managers and their co-sourcing partners to understand the market challenges and provide best practices to address them. The findings are based on interviews with industry experts and a survey conducted between numerous leaders and business heads of private capital firms, hedge funds, and private wealth managers. Scope: Industry: private capital market Geography: global Contents: In this report, we: Discuss the growth driving factors in the fund management business Examine the need for overhauling the business and operating processes of private capital firms Revamp the talent management strategy Develop agile systems that support frequent regulatory changes Tap into technology for differentiation, efficiency, and scale Build an ecosystem of trusted partners Membership(s) Banking and Financial Services Information Technology Sourcing and Vendor Management

The global custody service market was valued at US$24 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at 8% until 2022. The market is highly concentrated, with the top 15 custodians holding more than 70% of the total assets under their custody. Operational inefficiencies impair core custodial processes, such as asset servicing, corporate actions, and settlements. Hence, custodians need to invest in automation and process simplification to cut these operational overheads. Additionally, the industry needs to ensure the safekeeping of digital assets, whose valuations have been rising exponentially. Digital assets’ growth is evident from the rise in the cryptocurrency market’s value, increasing from US$578 billion in Q4 2020 to US$1.85 trillion in Q3 2021 due to increased traction in retail investments across digital assets. Diverse financial institutions are working to allow investors to securely store, buy, and sell digital assets. But for digital assets trading to gain momentum, institutional investors need to be assured that these are safe. This means that the future of these financial institutions may now rest on a digital asset custody foundation to offer fast, secure, and seamless experiences. Taking a cue, custodians are increasingly investing in platforms that will help them manage both traditional and digital assets. These are specialized platforms that combine security with speed, scalability, and operational flexibility. As these platforms encourage higher asset investment, such digital custody offerings are vital for the expansion of various assets. In this research, we discuss the benefits of a platform-based approach for custodians and depositors and recommend ways to implement it. Scope Industry: banking and financial services, custody and depository services, IT services Geography: global Contents In this report, we examine: Evolving priorities for custody and depository services Potential challenges with the existing model A platform-led approach for a new market structure Key technology investments to build custody services of the future Membership(s) Banking and Financial Services Information Technology Sourcing and Vendor Management

The corporate actions space, marked with various risks and challenges at multiple life cycle stages, has so far been considered to be an inefficient, unstructured process that is hard to automate. But with the volume and complexity of corporate actions rising exponentially, their efficient processing has become a priority. This paper sheds light on some of the complexities and risks characterizing this space and their related implications. We highlight the key areas in which issuers and market participants should invest and take a closer look at the third-party support that enterprises can leverage. Finally, we take a look at the pandemic’s transformative impact on corporate actions processing, with the role of technology and digital levers in solving some of the biggest organization’s challenges intensifying more than ever before. Scope Industry: Banking and Financial Services (BFS) Geography: global Contents In this paper, we discuss: The present state of corporate actions Digital leverage to transform corporate actions processing Third-party support for enterprises Impact on COVID-19 on the corporate actions space Membership(s) Banking and Financial Services (BFS) - Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Sourcing and Vendor Management