BNY Mellon launches SMA platform

US-BASED BNY Mellon is rolling out a separately managed account (SMA) platform that it hopes to market to private banks.

A separately managed account is a portfolio of securities managed on a discretionary basis. One of the big differences from unit trusts is that the investor directly customises the portfolio assets, such as stocks and bonds. Another is that investors get full transparency of holdings.

Alan Harden, BNY Mellon chief executive for investment management (Asia-Pacific), is confident that the service, called Spectrum, will take off, thanks to an expected uptick in world economic growth. "I'm very bullish about it . . . I'm pretty bullish on the world economy and developed markets, which will have a positive impact on Asia and wealth creation. I think we're going to enter three to four years of pretty good wealth creation.