NAB maintains top spot in custody rankings

Total assets under custody for Australian investors grew by 6.3 per cent to A$2.46 trillion in the six months to June, according to the Australian Custodial Services Association.

Assets held in custody on behalf of Australian investors included $1.7 trillion of Australian assets (up 3.3 per cent over the six months) and $740 billion of non-Australian assets (up 14.5 per cent).

NAB Asset Servicing is the biggest player in the market, with $673 billion of assets under custody for Australian investors. The value of assets held in custody by NAB grew 6.6 per cent over the six months to June.

JP Morgan had $464 billion of assets under custody (up 10.5 per cent), BNP Paribas had $312 billion (up 2.3 per cent) and Citigroup had $257 billion (up 1.1 per cent).

These four custodians together manage 70 per cent of assets under custody for Australian investors.

All of the 11 custodians whose custody assets were included in the ACSA survey increased total assets under custody for Australian investors during the six months to June.

The big mover was Northern Trust, whose assets under custody grew by 13.6 per cent to $167.1 billion.

Several custodians experienced falls in the value of non-Australian assets under custody for Australian investors. These included NAB Asset Servicing, Northern Trust, BNP Paribas, Netwealth and Bond Street.

The value of Australian assets held in custody for foreign investors rose 8.2 per cent to $1.04 trillion.

HSBC Bank Australia is the biggest custodian in this market segment (which is called sub-custody), with $684 billion of assets.

The big mover in this segment was BNP Paribas, which increased assets under custody by 20.4 per cent to $7.1 billion.