Outsourcing specialist eyes SPV, PDIC bookkeeping, administrative needs

One of the services RG Asset Management Sales Ltd. (Phils.) Inc. (RGAMS) can offer the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC), for example, is to manage the bookkeeping requirements of the hundreds of banks placed under receivership or liquidation. That would mean having thousands and thousands of individual electronic ledgers of the bank clients from the hundreds of banks under receivership or liquidation.

RGAMS is an independent provider of administrative requirements of companies, corporations, banks and other financial institutions. It is one of only two companies in the country that provides outsourcing services of that scale.

It can also take care of the bookkeeping or administrative requirements of hundreds of delinquent accounts acquired by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that has acquired the bad assets of a bank or financial institution.

"We can solve, the administrative requirements including record keeping of the institutions who would like to reallocate the precious man hours of existing personnel to focus on their competencies," said Crihil C. Ibañez, RGAMS chairman and RG Asset Management Co. Ltd. chief investment officer, said.

"Financial Records Management outsourcing is a growing trend in the international market. Outsourcing for administrative or backroom support is cost attractive and cost efficient as potential man-hours can be utilized for more productive means by our client," he added.

Outsourcing back office operations is cost attractive and cost efficient as potential man-hours can be utilized for more productive means. The loss of jobs as a result of outsourcing is a misconception.

The fund managers, for instance, can focus on its core competence, which is the effective management of funds. On the other hand, special purpose entities can focus on the management and restructuring of loans while the service provider takes care of encoding and reconciling balances of the borrowers.

Recently, RGAMS became the independent provider for the backroom administrative requirements of United Laboratories Corp. (Unilab) board of trustees Bayanihan Savings Plan. That allows the major pharmaceutical company to concentrate on its core business.

Other major clients that have enlisted the expertise of RGAMS are global life insurer Pru-Life of UK, Procter and Gamble (P&G), Total Philippines, ACCION and Bakels Phils. Inc., and the Credit Investigation Bureau Corp. (CIBI).

The independent provider claims that it has the capability, through its electronic capacities, of doing the job of hundreds of manual-oriented bookkeepers and financial record management.

Ibañez said: "We have the software and hardware for computational speed not only to handle thousands of individual ledgers but also for our client’s to be able to access their records on the Internet a daily basis."

Other sectors that could benefit from their outsourcing services are trust departments of banks and other financial institutions, asset management corporations, pension funds, mutual funds, loans and savings associations, cooperatives, insurance companies, and pre-need companies.

They also claim to provide administrative support for retirement and savings plans such as plan design and implementation, actuarial valuation, contribution calculation, loan administration, processing of employee records, including record-keeping and administration, distribution processing, and asset liability management.

General scope of services offered by RGAMS are: record keeping and administration; loan administration/cash withdrawals; reports (quarterly/annual generation of individual statement of equity balances indicating contributions and earnings; monthly submission via electronic copy of the summary on individual balances; monthly submission via electronic copy of the summary of forfeitures; consolidation of financial statements; individual statement of balances); set-up of retirement program; Internet access; and, audit process.

RGAMS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of RG Asset Management Co. Ltd. (RG AMCO), an asset management company based in Hong Kong. RG AMCO manages $1.6-billion non-traditional alternative investments. RGAMS Philippines handles most of the middle and back office needs of the RG Group of Companies.