Northern Trust Launches Enhanced Passport for Institutional Investors

(February 28, 2011) — Northern Trust has announced that it has rolled out a new version of its well-known web portal Passport for institutional investors.

The new application shows how the company has witnessed increasing demand for technology on multiple platforms. Last year, the bank and investment management company released a modified version of its Passport on iPhone and BlackBerry devices. “Most people don’t want to do everything on their small mobile devices, since there’s only so much they can consume,” Geordan Capes, global head of Passport product development at Northern Trust, told aiCIO last year, noting that the firm’s mobile app would provide answers for people on the move, who want to quickly check their portfolios to make decisions when they’re unable to access a computer.

“Sophisticated global investors know that Northern Trust Passport is a secure, one-stop entry point for asset information, functionality and the market-leading analytical tools they need to oversee large, complex portfolios,” said Paul d’Ouville, global head of product management for Corporate & Institutional Services at Northern Trust, in a release. “With our new Passport, institutional clients will leverage features that are familiar to Internet users worldwide to organize their desktop for maximum efficiency while maintaining the highest standards of security and data integrity.”

Updated aspects of the new Passport design, according to a statement released by the firm, include:

• Task-focused layout utilizing “drag and drop” capabilities.
• Improved search functionality for retrieval of data, such as portfolio statements or asset list.
• Interactive workspace to define and schedule reports for electronic delivery to the destination of the client’s choice.
• Details about reports to enable clients to quickly locate templates.

The firm’s new Passport delivers investor information such as asset allocation, transaction history, and market valuation to clients nationwide. “Our upgraded Passport is a product of melding our culture of client-focused development with user-centric design principles, creating a rich, intuitive user experience,” Capes said in a statement. “As investment complexity grows, it is even more important to harness the rapidly changing landscape of technology and build capabilities to enable clients to quickly retrieve the data they need to make smart decisions.”