Deutsche shakes up securities services unit

As part of a repositioning of Deutsche Bank’s direct securities services (DSS) business, the German group has named a new Asia-Pacific head of what is now called the investor services unit, to replace Mrugank Paranjape. 

Shrinath Bolloju, currently group chief operating officer for India, will take up the role in Singapore in May, as well as the post of head of trust and securities services and cash management for financial institutions. He will be in charge of product management, business development, sales and client services across functions including agency securities lending, custody and clearing and fund services.

Bolloju will report to Rafael Moral, the new global head of investor services based in Frankfurt (previously head of strategy and business development for global transaction banking); Lisa Robins, Asia-Pacific head of global transaction banking; and Satvinder Singh, global head of trust and securities services and cash management financial institutions.

Thibaud de Maintenant, the previous global head of DSS, has been appointed France head of global transaction banking head.

Paranjape, previously Asia-Pacific head of DSS, has been named head of DB Centre India, a post that entails running Deutsche’s research, analysis and front-office support functions in the country.

The repositioning of the securities services business is mainly due to the need to provide clients with a “one bank” solution, Singh tells AsianInvestor.

It is designed to meet increasing client demand for integrated solutions across custody and clearing, fund administration, and securities lending, says Deutsche. The move will mean an increasing focus on services such as collateral management and clearing, for which the new division will draw on expertise from other units of the bank.

The creation of investor services will result in more cross-selling opportunities to clients of Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, notes Singh. “We also want to avoid duplication of infrastructure as we invest resources into the various divisions,” he says.

Apart from shuffling the business heads, it is not clear how the bank has otherwise changed the structure of the business.

Deutsche is not the only bank to have made changes to its securities services business recently. In February, Citi created a new unit by merging its markets and securities services businesses under Patrick Dewilde. The move combines the US bank’s flow business in fixed income, currencies and commodities with its securities and fund services (SFS) function.

David Russell, the former Asia-Pacific head of SFS, has been named Asia head of investor services, a newly created unit that covers financing, execution, collateral management, custody and fund services.

JP Morgan had made a similar move back in 2012 to reposition its treasury and securities services business. It folded the custody, asset servicing, clearing, collateral management, agency securities lending and prime services functions into 'investor services'.

While some global banks have in recent years chosen to restructure transaction banking by breaking up some of the services under that business and weave them into different parts of the organisation, Singh says transaction banking remains an important division for Deutsche Bank.

Meanwhile, Deutsche was appointed by the seven Asean exchanges earlier this month to provide custody and settlement services to market participants of the Asean exchange link in the participating countries – initially Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

The collaboration aims to boost growth in the Asean capital market by driving cross-border collaboration, streamlining access to Asean, creating Asean-centric products and creating promotional opportunities.

The seven Asean exchanges aim to provide brokers who conduct trades into any of the participating Asean exchanges with a single point of entry, allowing them to settle and hold securities listed at other participating Asean exchanges via Deutsche Bank.

Deutsche will provide settlement, foreign exchange and custody services to the brokers in the participating countries.