SS&C Technologies Blog

The role of data management is expanding as fund managers demand more from their middle-office and fund administration providers. Expectations now extend beyond traditional operational support to include real-time visibility, cross-platform consistency and customized reporting. As a result, the quality, accessibility and flexibility of underlying data have become critical differentiators. When data is well-structured, accurately enriched and reliably governed, it becomes an operational asset.

SS&C’s Retirement Income Solutions team recently convened senior retirement income leaders from the nation’s top defined contribution recordkeepers for our 4th Annual Retirement Income Recordkeeper Roundtable.

Private credit has grown considerably in scale and complexity over the past decade, and the data infrastructure supporting it has struggled to keep pace. Loan data remains one of the most operationally intensive areas in the asset class, as large volumes of data arrive in formats that make automation challenging.

Private markets in 2026 are being shaped by three converging forces: artificial intelligence, interest rate uncertainty, political tensions and persistent illiquidity challenges. These forces aren’t new, but the way they are interacting is creating a more complex operating environment than most managers anticipated heading into the year. The firms navigating it most effectively are building strategies around conditions as they exist.

The operational demands of running a separately managed account program are well documented. What is less often discussed is the gap between managers who have built for those demands from the start and those who have tried to add SMA capability as an afterthought. As you’ll read in ourrecent report, produced in partnership with Hedgeweek, that distinction increasingly determines who wins institutional mandates and who doesn't.

How will life and pensions firms modernize their operations and the customer experience in a rapidly evolving landscape? This question was at the heart of SS&C's recent Life and Pensions Briefing. Major shifts in the life and pensions landscape—and the strategic choices firms must make now to remain competitive—were brought to the table. We gatheredmore than 20 senior providers and consultants in life assurance, pensions, insurance and wealth for an open discussion of market trends and headwinds.

Outsourcing has been an integral part of Bermuda’s insurance and reinsurance ecosystem for decades. It has supported growth, accelerated market entry and allowed firms to focus their internal resources on underwriting, risk and strategic decision making. For many insurers, outsourcing remains one of the most effective ways to operate efficiently in a highly regulated environment. That role is not diminishing.

Liquidity is the defining promise of hybrid funds. For investors, the appeal is straightforward, with faster capital deployment, periodic redemption opportunities and greater flexibility than traditional drawdown structures have historically offered. But beneath that promise lies a more difficult operational reality. Delivering liquidity in private markets is inherently complex, particularly when the underlying assets remain fundamentally illiquid.

The most sophisticated wire fraud attempts today do not announce themselves. They look like any other routine interaction. An invoice arrives from a trusted vendor. The sender’s name is familiar. The project referenced is real. The amount matches expectations. Nothing about the request raises immediate concerns. The employee reviewing the invoice does exactly what fraud awareness training has taught them to do. They examine the details, verify the context and look for signs of manipulation.

Multi-strategy hedge funds have been the primary growth driver in the industry over the past decade. Strong risk-adjusted returns, diversification benefits and a model that scales across strategies and geographies have made them a primary destination for allocator capital in the global $5 trillion hedge fund sector. But as the sector matures, a new set of operational and strategic priorities is emerging.