1. Year-end as a pivotal period for operational resilience
The Australian financial services sector continues consolidating, with larger superannuation funds and increasingly complex portfolios placing greater demands on investment operations teams. This year-end will bring high volumes and time sensitivity, testing the scalability and resilience of systems, controls, and personnel. Institutions must ensure their unit pricing processes maintain accuracy and integrity even during peak workloads.
2. Managing global macro uncertainty and increased member switching
Ongoing global economic uncertainty often drives members to switch asset allocations away from riskier classes toward more defensive options, increasing portfolio redemption and switching volumes. Funds must reassess whether their unit pricing methodologies and operational frameworks are robust enough to handle this heightened activity without compromising accuracy or timeliness.
3. Strengthening governance and valuation of private market assets
APRA operational risk standards and ASIC’s product governance focus require pricing teams to:
- Justify all pricing decisions, including overrides and manual adjustments
- Maintain clear, traceable audit trails of valuation inputs and methodologies
- Identify and resolve exceptions efficiently and systematically
Regulators have focused on the valuation of private market assets. APRA’s December 2024 review emphasises the need for stronger valuation governance for private assets and more frequent, reliable valuations, at least quarterly or more often in volatile markets. ASIC has similarly identified this as a key issue in its 2025 outlook.
GBST’s Composer and Tax Analyser tools support these requirements by enhancing auditability, transparency, and automated exception reporting throughout the year-end and investment cycle.
4. Breaking the spreadsheet bottleneck
Many funds rely on spreadsheets and disconnected tools for pricing, reconciliations, and tax adjustments. While workable in stable, small portfolios, these methods increase risk, inefficiency, and human error, especially under year-end pressure.
With operational budgets tightening and resource pressures rising in 2025, intelligent automation and integrated processes are critical. GBST solutions provide:
- Centralised data management and controlled workflows
- Automated calculations and reconciliation
- Audit-ready reports at the click of a button
This reduces risk and frees teams to focus on higher-value oversight and decision-making.
5. Looking ahead: Building resilience and scalability
In 2025, compliance alone is not enough. Funds must build unit pricing operations that are resilient, scalable, and capable of adapting to evolving market, regulatory, and member demands. Key goals include:
- Faster, more frequent reporting cycles
- Enhanced operational resilience under market stress
- Consistent controls across multiple entities, funds, and asset classes
GBST is committed to helping clients meet these challenges with solutions that combine deep domain expertise with technology solutions that support better governance, deliver audit-ready processes, and reduce the operational risks flagged by regulators. Our goal is to help firms move beyond reactive compliance and build scalable, future-fit unit pricing operations.
Want to know more? Take a look at our Tax and quantitative solutions.
