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Built to Last: Why Resilience Matters in the Next Era of Fund Technology

By Thomas Chevalier, CRO, Multifonds

What should firms consider when modernising core fund accounting and transfer agency technology? Innovation matters, but resilience, operational depth and long-term sustainability are just as important. Thomas Chevalier, CRO at Multifonds, explores how specialised technology providers are reshaping fund operations – and why firms need to balance faster innovation with the stability required for critical accounting and investor servicing functions.

Key takeaways

• Specialised fund technology providers are expanding choice and accelerating experimentation across fund operations.
• A more fragmented provider ecosystem can also create additional interfaces, dependencies and business continuity risk.
• Core fund accounting and transfer agency platforms require operational depth, security, scalability and long-term product sustainability – not feature innovation alone.
• The strongest operating model combines a resilient core with specialised, more interchangeable capabilities around the edges.

What is driving the new technology cycle in fund operations?

The fund industry is changing on two fronts at the same time: financial products and technology.

On the product side, ETFs continue to grow in scale and complexity. Private assets are expanding beyond their traditional institutional base. Hybrid, evergreen and semi-liquid structures are becoming more common. The line between liquid and illiquid products is becoming less clear, creating new operational demands for fund accounting and transfer agency teams.

At the same time, a new technology cycle is accelerating across the industry. Cloud, AI, tokenisation and digital assets are reshaping expectations around automation, scalability and speed. Firms are under pressure to modernise operating models that were often designed for a simpler and more stable environment.

The result is a dual transformation: product complexity is increasing just as the technology landscape supporting fund operations becomes more dynamic and interconnected.

For fund accounting and transfer agency teams, the impact is immediate. New fund structures, increasing product complexity and the convergence of private and liquid assets are forcing firms to rethink operating models built for a different environment. At the same time, new technologies promise solutions, but also introduce additional platforms, interfaces and dependencies to manage across the operating landscape.

Why are specialised fund technology providers growing so quickly?

This environment has fuelled the rapid growth of specialised providers across every layer of fund operations.

Cloud infrastructure, SaaS models, AI frameworks and open architecture have lowered barriers to entry. New firms can now build and deploy specialised solutions faster and with far less upfront investment than in previous technology cycles. Many focus on a specific operational challenge: reconciliation, investor onboarding, tokenisation, workflow automation, digital servicing capabilities and, increasingly, accounting.

These firms move quickly, focus narrowly and make new technologies easier to test and adopt within organisations. Their specialised approach can accelerate experimentation and help operational teams engage more rapidly with emerging capabilities.

Access to funding has amplified this trend. In periods of abundant liquidity, start-ups can scale rapidly, expand teams and build strong market visibility in a short period of time.

For asset managers and service providers, the result is an explosion of specialised solutions across fund operations, creating more choice – but also more complexity in navigating the technology landscape.

Why can a crowded fund technology ecosystem create resilience risk?

The challenge is no longer access to technology. It is managing an increasingly fragmented ecosystem of specialised providers.

For critical fund operations, every additional platform can create another interface, dependency and continuity consideration. The question is not only whether a solution works today, but whether it can remain supportable, scalable and resilient over the long term.

Many newer providers bring strong innovation in targeted areas, but supporting fund accounting and transfer agency at scale requires more than technology alone. It requires operational depth, functional breadth and years of experience across clients, jurisdictions and market cycles.

As funding conditions tighten, recent failures in the fintech infrastructure space have shown how quickly operational dependency can become a business continuity issue. The collapse of Synapse in 2024 and the bankruptcy of Solid Financial Technologies in 2025 exposed clients to operational disruption, migration pressure and continuity risk.

Growth potential and long-term resilience are not the same thing.

In an environment of increasing regulatory scrutiny, firms must also consider the long-term robustness of the platforms they depend on: security architecture, scalability, operational controls and product sustainability. Modern interfaces and rapid innovation are important, but they are not enough on their own for core operational functions.

For firms relying on newer providers for essential fund accounting and transfer agency operations, the consequences of failure can be significant: unsupported platforms, forced migrations, operational disruption and renewed integration costs at exactly the wrong time.

What should firms assess in a core fund technology provider?

For core fund accounting and transfer agency technology, firms should look beyond feature velocity. The assessment should include operational depth, security architecture, scalability, controls, product sustainability and the provider’s ability to keep investing through changing market cycles.

Why do stability and experience still matter in fund accounting and transfer agency?

Fund accounting and transfer agency are not experimental functions. They sit at the core of the operating model. They support NAV calculation, investor servicing, regulatory reporting, oversight and operational control across multiple jurisdictions and product structures.

In core fund technology, resilience means the ability to absorb product, regulatory and technology change without disrupting critical operations.

In this environment, stability matters. Not as a resistance to change, but as the ability to absorb change without disrupting operations.

Long-standing platforms like Multifonds benefit from decades of continuous investment, real-world testing across global fund structures and deeply embedded controls developed in response to evolving operational, cyber and regulatory risks.

Equally important is the strength of the underlying intellectual property. Mature platforms carry years of domain expertise, proven processing logic and institutional knowledge that cannot easily be replicated.

How can firms balance innovation with long-term resilience?

This does not mean mature platforms should stand still.

Innovation remains essential, and long-term providers also have a critical role to play in integrating new technologies into the operating model in a controlled and sustainable way.

Not every capability needs to sit at the core of the platform. Firms can continue to innovate through specialised and more interchangeable solutions around the edges, while relying on stable and proven platforms for critical accounting, transfer agency and operational control functions.

The challenge is not choosing between innovation and stability. It is combining both without increasing operational fragmentation and risk.

What should firms prioritise when modernising core fund operations?

Build for change without increasing operational risk.

The fund industry will continue to innovate, and that is a positive development. New technologies and specialised providers can play an important role in helping firms experiment and learn across fund operations. But as operating models become more interconnected, resilience and sustainability will matter just as much as innovation itself.

For firms modernising fund accounting and transfer agency operations, the challenge is no longer simply adopting new technology. It is building operating models that can evolve without increasing operational risk.

When core operations fail, firms remain accountable to regulators, clients and investors regardless of the technology provider involved. That is why proven platforms with broad market adoption still play a critical role in reducing operational and institutional risk.

Connect with the author

Thomas Chevalier | LinkedIn

Last updated in Aug 2026.