Information architecture and IT infrastructure Consultancy Services for Investment Management Di ...

A. Services 1. The Investment Management Division (IMD) of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund seeks an experienced consultancy firm to carry out an assessment of the information architecture and IT infrastructure for the “Front Office / Trade Order Management activities,” the Trade Settlement Operations, and the Reconciliation and Accounting System for the Investment Management Division (IMD) of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (“UNJSPF” or “the Fund”): (a) Assess/document the current information architecture and IT infrastructure and related security, business workflow, trade life cycle and investment operations from front to back of IMD including cash management and reconciliation tools, accounting, risk and performance analytics for all investment transactions. The assessment should include: applications (business alignment, complexity of interfaces), cost, service levels, staffing and sourcing); (b) Assess strengths/weaknesses of the current information architecture and IT infrastructure and recommend enhancement options or alternative strategies to fully automate business processes to achieve automated and/or straight-through processing of front-to-back trade operations (buy-side) including private markets (i.e., private real estate, private equity and hedge fund structures (limited partnerships)), corporate action elections and processing, daily cash projection/activity reports, reconciliations, exception management and issue resolution, and IFRS-compliant general ledger accounting system (double-entry system); The recommendation should be drawn from reviewing the adequacy of the implemented business applications supporting the IMD investment operations, cash management, reconciliation, accounting, risk and performance analytics as well as the adequacy of the IMD information architecture and IT infrastructure including security to support the business applications; (c) Assess IMD’s operational business needs/requirements that would fit its buy-side business model keeping in mind future additions to its current asset classes; Assess and identify deficiencies in existing infrastructure for operational and fraud risk; Identify weak points and suggest scenarios which can exploit those weaknesses and how proposed architecture would alleviate those weak points; and (d) Assess, quantify and/or qualify the cost/benefit analyses for each option/alternative. 2. Assistance may also be sought for gathering and documenting business user requirements and business cases for development/changes that might be needed, development of RFP and evaluation criteria, vendor selection and/or implementation. B. Brief Description of the Fund 3. The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations (“UN”) to provide retirement, death, disability and related benefits for the staff of the UN and 22 other international intergovernmental organizations admitted to membership in the Fund. 4. The UNJSPF provides retirement, death, disability and related benefits for the staff of the UN and other international organizations admitted to membership of the Fund. 5. The UNJSPF is primarily an internally managed fund, with US$50 billion under management. Approximately 5.5 per cent of the Fund’s assets are invested in externally managed funds such as real assets and private equity (limited partnerships), small-cap equities, emerging markets debt and equity fund. The Fund is looking to increase its investments in alternative assets, which may include hedge funds of funds, futures/derivatives, securities lending and collateral management, etc. 6. The UNJSPF is one of the most globally diversified funds in the world. Although most of the investments are in major developed markets, the Fund is committed to finding sound investment opportunities in emerging markets. The Fund’s assets are invested in 23 currencies and 44 countries (including emerging markets), regional institutions, multilateral institutions, and institutional investment trusts. Additional information on the Fund in general and its investment policies in particular can be found on Fund’s website at http://imd.unjspf.org/index.html.