Due diligence for one of Australia’s largest pension funds

The Australian Retirement Trust (ART) is the result of the merger of Sunsuper and QSuper, two significant superannuation funds in Australia.

ART is currently responsible for approximately AUS$240bn in retirement savings for 2.2 million members. Creating a pension trust of this size – which instantly became Australia’s second largest – first required the regulator’s approval. Once that was forthcoming, the trust then needed help to meet its regulatory requirements regarding the appointment of one of its significant outsourced providers, the Global Custodian.

The challenge

The merger happened in early 2022, and in April 2022 Thomas Murray was engaged to run an RFP process so that ART could finalise its post-merger custody, administration, middle office and data arrangements. In a closed tender process, State Street, which had been Sunsuper’s custodian before the merger, was appointed in a very competitive bid from both service providers. Northern Trust, formerly QSuper’s custodian, was the other contender in the process.

Although the process was closed, it was still a full RFP to reflect the size of the new trust and the breadth and complexity of services it requires.

The solution

ART used Thomas Murray’s extensive database of questions to draft an RFP totalling almost 500 questions covering a range of topics, from technology and data, to performance against ESG goals, right through to the management of legal arrangements. The RFP was then issued to State Street and Northern Trust using Thomas Murray’s secure online RFP and due diligence tool, Orbit Diligence.

The verdict

Once the questionnaires and the RFP process were completed, Thomas Murray worked with ART’s teams to analyse and benchmark the responses in the Orbit Diligence tool. Thomas Murray supported ART throughout the process, providing insights on global best practices wherever possible. Thomas Murray was able to provide ART with both detailed analysis of the proposals received and make concise recommendations to assist ART formulate its ultimate decision.

With 30 years of experience in due diligence and risk management for the world’s most complex industries, Thomas Murray is trusted by organisations globally for our mission-critical insights, independence, flexibility and award-winning solutions.

Director of a Major Middle Eastern CSD

“The evaluation is very beneficial not only for our IT Security team but for the company as a whole. As CSDs we have to be as prepared as we can be against cyber risks, so Thomas Murray’s new initiative will be a golden key for that.”

Director of Cyber Security, Latin American financial institution

“The tool is good for us to identify cybersecurity risks to which our domain and its sources are exposed, as well as how to mitigate them.”

Head of Network Management, a European Bank

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Cyber Specialist, third-party risk management at a US bank

“Responses to cyber questionnaires can be very PR-focused, and it’s difficult to get transparency. Security ratings cut through poor response rates to provide a health check based on objective, verifiable public data. We have integrated Thomas Murray’s cyber risk ratings and threat intelligence into our monitoring of agent banks and CSDs globally, and are looking to add additional groups from across the bank.”

IT Security Officer at a Central European bank

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CISO responsible for TPRM at a Global Bank

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IT Security Specialist of a Swiss financial institution

“Thomas Murray Cyber Risk is a great complement to the tools we use today. It provides much more comprehensive information around the vulnerabilities in our IT infrastructure – and particularly has a lot more details about breached employee emails and passwords than other providers. This is extremely helpful as it allows us to contract those employees with specific, actionable intelligence, and so that we can improve the email behaviour of all staff.”

CISO of an African financial institution

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Head of IT Security of a Latin American stock exchange

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Director of a large Turkish financial institution

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CISO, Global Custody Bank

“Thomas Murray Cyber Risk’s approach is sophisticated. Its machine learning algorithm identifies our third parties’ public IT infrastructures with huge accuracy and requires no manual intervention. We feel we can place reliance on the ratings to build a robust third-party risk management framework. The solution was new to us, but the scope and accuracy of the data is better than anything I have seen in the market.”

Head of Network Management, Global Custody Bank

“In the past, we only had occasional contact with our IT Security team, who helped to validate the responses to some DDQs [due diligence questionnaires]. Recent regulations and geopolitical events demonstrated to our bank the need to monitor the cyber risk of our post-trade counterparties around the world. Thomas Murray has been instrumental in developing such a programme for us, and in bringing Network Management and IT Security together."