Glossary · Investors & Compliance
Transfer Agency (TA)
Transfer agency is the function that maintains a fund's register of investors and processes subscriptions, redemptions, transfers and related investor communications.
The transfer agent keeps the official shareholder or partner register. It processes subscription documents, confirms KYC and AML clearance, issues and redeems shares at the applicable NAV, records transfers between investors, and sends contract notes and periodic statements. It is often part of the fund administrator’s service.
Transfer agency connects investor records with cash. Subscription money must be matched to the correct investor before shares are issued, and redemption proceeds must be paid only to verified accounts in the investor’s name.
Pitfalls include issuing shares before cleared funds are received, processing dealing requests received after cut-off, weak verification of changes to bank details (a frequent fraud risk), and investor tax classifications for FATCA and CRS that are not kept up to date. Call-back verification of bank detail changes and daily reconciliation of the register to subscription and redemption cash are the core controls.
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