Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Investment Services Processor

💰 $45,000 - $80,000

OperationsFinanceInvestment Services

🎯 Role Definition

An Investment Services Processor is responsible for executing and overseeing middle- and back-office operational workflows for investment products and client accounts. The role ensures accurate trade capture and settlement, timely corporate action processing, routine reconciliations, cash and position maintenance, and responsive client and custodian communications. This position enforces operational controls, supports regulatory and audit requests, and continuously improves processes, systems and documentation to reduce risk and increase efficiency across custody, fund administration, and broker-dealer environments.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Operations Analyst / Junior Operations Associate
  • Client Services Representative / Client Onboarding Specialist
  • Fund Accounting Analyst / Reconciliation Specialist

Advancement To:

  • Senior Investment Services Processor / Senior Operations Associate
  • Operations Team Lead / Supervisor
  • Fund Operations Manager / Head of Middle Office

Lateral Moves:

  • Risk & Controls Analyst (Operational Risk)
  • Compliance Analyst (AML/KYC focused)
  • Reconciliation or Corporate Actions Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Execute daily trade capture, allocation, affirmation and settlement workflows across equities, fixed income and funds, ensuring accurate input into custody or fund accounting systems and timely resolution of fails with custodians, brokers and prime brokers.
  • Process and validate corporate actions (mandatory and voluntary) including entitlements, elections, tax reclaim, reorganizations and proxy events, working closely with custodians and transfer agents to ensure correct elections and timely client notifications.
  • Perform daily cash and position maintenance for client accounts, reconciling cash movements, deposits, withdrawals and FX conversions between the general ledger, custody records and third-party platforms.
  • Reconcile daily, weekly and monthly position and cash differences between internal systems and external custodians, prepare exception reports, investigate root causes and implement corrective actions to reduce recurring breaks.
  • Manage settlement lifecycle tasks including trade affirmation, settlement instructions, SWIFT message generation and tracking, and liaise with DTCC, Euroclear, Clearstream or other central securities depositories as required.
  • Prepare, review and post journal entries, settlement adjustments and fee accruals into fund accounting or general ledger systems, ensuring accounting treatment aligns with internal policy and external reporting requirements.
  • Conduct detailed reconciliation and investigation of dividends, interest and corporate action entitlements including tax withholding validation and reclaims, ensuring client entitlements are processed accurately and timely.
  • Administer client account maintenance tasks such as account openings/closures, transfers, beneficiary updates, account structure changes and mandate updates while ensuring KYC/AML documentation is current and complete.
  • Respond to internal and external client inquiries regarding trade status, settlement, corporate actions, valuations and account activity, delivering clear, professional and timely communication to relationship managers and clients.
  • Maintain and update operational procedures, work instructions, runbooks and knowledge base articles to reflect system changes, regulatory updates and process improvements.
  • Support month-end and quarter-end operational close processes including reconciliations, accruals, suspense clearing and production of required management reports.
  • Monitor and escalate operational and settlement exceptions, drafting clear incident reports, root-cause analysis and remediation plans while collaborating with risk, compliance and technology teams.
  • Execute fund transfers, subscriptions, redemptions and NAV-related processing in accordance with fund rules, transfer agent instructions and custodial requirements.
  • Participate in system implementations, upgrades and UAT (user acceptance testing) for custody, middle-office and accounting platforms, validating new functionality and documenting test results and defects.
  • Ensure adherence to internal control frameworks, SOX controls and operational SLAs; complete control self-assessments and remediate control gaps identified during reviews or audits.
  • Coordinate with custody banks, transfer agents, prime brokers and clearing firms to resolve failed trades, trade breaks and settlement exceptions; negotiate breaks to support timely book-to-book and market settlements.
  • Prepare and deliver regular operational reporting for managers and external clients, including settlement performance metrics, failed trade statistics, reconciliation dashboards and exception aging reports.
  • Support regulatory and compliance reporting requests, providing accurate transactional and account detail to satisfy audit requests and regulatory inquiries (e.g., SEC, FINRA, FCA).
  • Lead or contribute to process improvement initiatives using Lean, Six Sigma or other continuous improvement methodologies to automate manual tasks, reduce error rates and shorten processing times.
  • Train and mentor junior operations staff, provide on-the-job coaching, assist in development of competency matrices and support cross-training to maintain business continuity.
  • Maintain strict confidentiality and data protection practices in line with firm policy, ensuring client data integrity and secure handling of sensitive information across operations and third-party interfaces.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc client and relationship manager requests for statements, trade history and ad hoc reports, customizing extracts from custody and accounting systems.
  • Assist in special projects such as product launches, change-of-structure events and migration activities; coordinate cutover activities and provide runbook support.
  • Engage with technology teams to suggest system enhancements, prioritize defects and participate in iterative improvements to operational tools.
  • Collaborate with compliance and AML teams during client onboarding and periodic reviews, supplying operational documentation and transaction histories required for risk assessments.
  • Help prepare materials and responses for internal and external audits, including control evidence, ticket logs and remediation plans.
  • Contribute to the development of KPI dashboards and visualizations to allow managers and stakeholders to track team performance and SLA adherence.
  • Perform periodic quality control reviews on processed items to ensure accuracy and adherence to policy; escalate patterns of error for process redesign.
  • Participate in cross-functional committees focused on vendor management, service level agreements with custodians and third-party provider performance.
  • Coordinate end-to-end workflows with global operations teams to support off-shore/on-shore processing models and ensure 24/7 operational coverage where applicable.
  • Assist in tax reclaim processing and liaise with tax teams or external providers to validate treaty benefits and client tax statuses.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Trade settlement lifecycle knowledge (trade capture → affirmation → matching → settlement) for equities, fixed income and funds.
  • Corporate actions processing expertise including entitlement calculation, elections, proxies and tax reclaim workflows.
  • Strong reconciliation skills: cash, position and SWIFT message reconciliation between internal systems and custodians.
  • Familiarity with SWIFT messaging (MT and ISO20022 basics) and experience generating/troubleshooting settlement/confirmation messages.
  • Working knowledge of custody and middle-office platforms (examples: Broadridge, SS&C, SimCorp, FIS, Charles River, Calypso).
  • Experience with DTCC/Euroclear/Clearstream interactions and clearing/settlement counterparts.
  • Proficiency in Excel (VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot tables, complex formulas) and experience extracting/manipulating data from operational systems.
  • Basic SQL or reporting skills to extract transactional data and build ad-hoc reports (preferred but not always required).
  • Understanding of KYC/AML requirements, client onboarding documentation and regulatory recordkeeping.
  • Familiarity with fund administration processes (subscriptions/redemptions, NAV impact, transfer agency procedures).
  • Knowledge of general ledger posting, accruals and basic fund/accounting journal entries.
  • Experience with ticketing/issue-tracking systems (ServiceNow, JIRA) and strong ticket management practices.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional attention to detail and high accuracy when processing financial transactions and reconciliations.
  • Strong verbal and written communication skills for clear client-facing responses and interdepartmental coordination.
  • Problem-solving and analytical mindset with the ability to investigate complex exceptions and identify root causes.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to manage high-volume workloads and meet tight SLAs.
  • Customer-service orientation with a calm, professional demeanor when handling escalations and sensitive requests.
  • Team collaboration skills and ability to work across global teams and time zones.
  • Adaptability to change and eagerness to learn new systems, products and regulatory requirements.
  • Organizational skills for maintaining documentation, runbooks and audit trails.
  • Ethical judgment and a commitment to confidentiality and regulatory compliance.
  • Initiative and process improvement focus to identify automation opportunities and reduce manual risk.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business, Accounting, Economics or a related field OR equivalent operational experience in investment services.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree and/or relevant certifications such as Investment Operations Certificate (IOCP/ IOPS), CFA levels, or a Certificate in Securities Operations.
  • Additional training in AML/KYC, reconciliation techniques, or systems-specific vendor training.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Finance
  • Accounting
  • Economics
  • Business Administration
  • Mathematics / Statistics
  • Information Systems (for reporting / automation familiarity)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 1 to 5 years in investment operations, custody, fund administration, or middle/back-office processing.

Preferred:

  • 3+ years of direct experience processing settlements, corporate actions, reconciliations and custody interactions in a financial services environment; prior exposure to SWIFT, DTCC and fund accounting systems preferred.
Explore More Careers