State Street launches research centre

State Steet’s newly launched research centre will look to provide long term strategic insights into the investment management industry,with an initial focus on regulatory changes, distribution, products, fees and technology.

The Centre for Applied Research will have analysts based in Asia, North America and Europe. State Street’s executive vice president Jack Klinck said they aimed to fill a gap in the research currently available to the industry.

“The research gap is really getting deeper insights over a longer period of time,” said Klinck, who also heads State Street’s Corporate Development and Global Relationship Management.

“We don’t just want to look at tomorrow or the day after but really think out over a strategic time frame of three to five years and what the industry might look like and be a little bolder.”

The centre will look to leverage State Streets extensive relationships across the 26 countries it operates in, with its primary research driven by direct interviews with industry leaders.

“We want to not just publish research that is in the form of summarising all the best intelligence that is out there today, we want to be more on the leading edge and we think the way to do this is to be with industry leaders,” Klinck said.

“These are the people who are presumably thinking about these issues: the regulators, the CEOs and the hedge fund managers, and that is the gap we want to fill.”

While the centre is yet to announce a full list of the topics it wants to cover, Klinck said it is looking at the issues that will shape the future of the investment management industry, including regulatory and technology changes.

The centre would also look at distribution from the retail, high net-worth individuals and institutional perspectives, Klinck said.

The centre’s research topics would also be informed by feedback from its customer base about what issues needed greater investigation.

One area Klinck flagged was the question of fees and if investors received value for money.

“We want to look the whole area of value for money area in terms of are clients really getting what they pay for in terms of asset management and is there a real relationship between the quality you receive and the price you pay,” he said.

Leading the research initiative is State Street senior vice president Kelly McKenna who has 25 years experience in industry.

McKenna returned to State Street in 2010 from BNY Mellon, where she designed strategic plans for new business development with institutional clients.

Also joining the centre’s team is Susan Duncan who recently re-joined State Street from IBM, where she led research for the financial markets industry.

Klinck said the centre would consult with the industry and release a list of research topics later in the year.