Counterparty onboarding that gets every fund trade-ready by its first trade date, with every broker answer cited and signed
Funds trade-ready in days, not weeks, with every broker answer cited and signed.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Counterparty Onboarding is counterparty onboarding software for asset managers: it opens fund accounts at brokers, FCMs and FX banks, from each counterparty's own KYC questionnaire and tax forms to agreements, settlement instructions and system setup. Eight agents answer the broker's form in its own language from approved fund documents, check every answer against the entity master and the LEI record, complete W-8BEN-E and CRS forms and plan each opening back from the fund's first trade date. A specialist prepares, a different team lead approves, compliance signs ownership and AML answers, and trading operations signs the fund trade-ready.
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Counterparty onboarding is the work of opening a fund's accounts at every broker, FCM and FX bank it will trade with — and it has to be finished before the first trade date. Each counterparty sends its own KYC questionnaire, often in its own language: a Japanese account application, a Portuguese ficha cadastral, a French institutional questionnaire. Each wants a W-8BEN-E or a W-9 and a CRS self-certification, its own agreement and settlement instructions. Then the order management system, portfolio accounting and the custodian have to be set up. The onboarding team copies answers by hand from offering documents that may already be out of date.
The risk sits in the answers given in the fund's name. A registered office that moved but still prints in the offering memorandum, a broker that asks for owners at 10% answered with the firm's 25% template, a GIIN with two digits swapped that triggers 30% withholding, a settlement instruction typed from an email, a lapsed LEI. And one leg waiting in someone's inbox is enough for a seeded fund to miss its launch.
Median business days per leg on the working solution's sample data: the demo firm's 2025 baseline, by hand, against the last 90 days with the agents. Tax forms and agreements run beside the KYC pack, so the legs add up to more than the days to trade-ready.
Eight agents answer each broker's form in its language, check every answer and run the relay; people approve, sign and release.
Quillfield Asia Opportunities Fund Ltd, a Cayman Islands fund with a $250M seed, makes its first trade on Monday, November 2. It needs six counterparties. On Friday, October 16, Sakuragawa Securities in Tokyo sends its 62-question account application in Japanese. Here is the counterparty onboarding that follows, screen by screen, in the working solution.
186 openings are in flight across 38 funds and 32 counterparties; 42 are due trade-ready in the next 10 business days, 4 wait on Sofia and 9 are held by the agents, each with its reason. At the top of her list: Sakuragawa's 62-question form, answered in Japanese, with compliance signing 4 answers on owners above 10%. Beside it, what the agents did overnight, every line cited.
Checker agent, 12:06 a.m.: “Corrected one: the Asia fund's registered office moved on September 11; the offering memorandum still shows the old address.”
Each fund-and-counterparty opening is a lane: KYC pack, tax forms, agreements, settlement instructions, system setup. Finished legs carry the name of who finished them and the current leg is highlighted. The Asia fund is 1 of 6 trade-ready; Sakuragawa is on day 3 of 5 with 2 days of slack, its KYC pack with compliance. The Relay agent's panel says where the lane stands and the one next step.
Relay agent: “When Nadia signs, the pack comes to you to approve and submit. Due by noon to stay on day 3.”
Opening the lane shows everything that happened, in order. The Intake agent read Haruka Nishimura's 6-page form, 62 questions in 9 sections, matched it to the fund by name and LEI and opened CPO-2026-1187. The Relay agent planned it back from November 2: target 5 business days, trade-ready by Thursday, October 22. The W-8BEN-E and Japan's CRS form passed 14 of 14 checks each, and 29 of Sakuragawa's 31 terms matched the playbook.
Amara Osei, Legal: “Accepted with a side letter carving out gross negligence, fraud and willful misconduct from clause 17.”
From 11:20 p.m. to 12:06 a.m. the agents worked the form, every step logged with the agent's version. The Questionnaire agent answered from approved documents only — the October 2026 offering memorandum, the certificate, the registers of directors and members, the LEI record, the board resolution, the trader list, the AML letter, the group chart and KYC policy v7.2 — in Japanese and English, every answer cited to its page. Five compliance-approved standard answers were reused unchanged.
“Q27 to Q30 ask about owners at 10% of economic interest; the pack covers 25% of voting rights → policy §4.2: compliance must sign.”
On a different model, the Checker agent re-derived all 62 answers from the entity master, the LEI registry and the IRS FFI list. 61 agreed. Q4, the registered office: the offering memorandum's directory still shows Coral Quay House, 41 Fort Street, while the LEI record and the September 11 change notice show Suite 5-04, Seven Mile Exchange, 22 Elgin Avenue. It corrected the answer, showed both sources, and flagged the OM for its next supplement. Priya Raman accepted it with the 58 routine answers at 8:31 a.m.
Checker agent: “Disagreed. … The OM was printed before the move.”
Sakuragawa asks for investors with 10% or more of economic interest; Quillfield's standard pack covers more than 25% of voting rights. From the register of members, the agents found Hoshimura Life Insurance Company, Limited at 23.6% and Quillfield Capital Holdings LLC at 11.2%; no natural person reaches 10%, both were screened on October 19 with no match, and source of funds is cited to the subscription agreement and board resolution. All four answers went to compliance, due 12:00 p.m.
“Sakuragawa asks more than our standard pack: owners at 10% or more of economic interest.”
Nadia opens the four answers with their sources side by side: the register of members, Hoshimura's Japanese annual securities report, the screening record and the subscription agreement. She signs all four with the reason code “Broker threshold stricter than pack — disclosed under investor consent”, confirmed with her second factor. The Relay agent hands the pack to Sofia.
Blocked by the solution: “Onboarding cannot sign ownership, PEP, sanctions or source-of-funds answers.”
Approve and submit unlocks only when everything is in: 58 routine answers approved, 4 of 4 compliance signatures, the Checker agreeing on 62 of 62, the W-8BEN-E and CRS form approved and 9 certified documents attached. Priya is the maker, Sofia the checker. The Relay agent sends Sakuragawa its own form in Japanese by secure email and keeps the English copy.
“The person who prepared a pack cannot approve it.”
Sakuragawa confirms account 0771-402281 the same afternoon. Wen Hao Lim calls back the settlement desk on the number in the counterparty directory, not the one in the email; Kelvin Ong releases the JPY instructions as the second person. The Setup agent prepares OMS counterparty SAKU-JP, FIX session SAKU.TKY.01, allocation account QAOF-JPY-01 and the accounting mapping. Grace Liang sees the test order acknowledged and signs the fund trade-ready.
Relay agent: “Trade-ready in 3 days, against a usual 19. 5 of 5 legs finished, each by a named person.”
Every action by people and agents is logged with who, what, when, why and which evidence, with each agent's version, in Singapore time. The hash chain is verified each morning. One click builds the export pack for CPO-2026-1187: the form in Japanese and English, the cited documents, the compliance signatures, the maker and checker, the tax forms, the clause 17 decision and the SSI call-back and release.
“Hash chain verified 9:00 a.m. · 148,220 events since Jan 1.”
The same Sakuragawa opening, seen by five of the people who carry it — what their week looked like, and what it looks like now.
Eight agents answer each broker's form in its language, check every answer and run the relay; people approve, sign and release.
Reads every pack that arrives by email, broker portal, the KYC document exchange or e-signature, in its own language; recognizes the counterparty, the fund by name and LEI, the form and what is asked, and opens or updates the lane.
Answers each counterparty's own KYC questionnaire from approved fund documents, in the counterparty's language and in English, every answer cited to its page, and flags questions stricter than the standard pack.
Re-derives every answer on its own, on a different model, from the entity master, the LEI registry and the IRS FFI list, and compares it with the draft. Each morning it checks all 612 fund records against the LEI registry and the IRS list.
Completes W-8BEN-E, W-9, CRS self-certifications and local forms from the entity master, runs 14 checks on each — including the GIIN against the IRS FFI list — computes the expiry and sends the form for e-signature.
Compares each counterparty agreement — terms of business, FCM documents, ISDA Master Agreement and CSA — with the trading agreement playbook clause by clause, and drafts the counter-proposal or redline for Legal.
Builds standing settlement instructions from the custodian's SSI database, compares them with the counterparty's confirmation in any language and books the call-back on the number in the counterparty directory.
Prepares the OMS counterparty, FIX session, allocation accounts, portfolio accounting mapping, custodian notice and credit limit request, each value cited to the agreement, the confirmation or the SSIs.
Plans every lane back from the fund's first trade date, hands each finished leg to its next named owner with the evidence, chases counterparties in their own language and says early which lanes could miss launch, and why.
Maker, checker, signatures, evidence. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any lane, answer, form or counterparty — or tell the agents what to do. Answers cite their sources, and anything that would reach a counterparty comes back to a person to approve.
Which lanes could miss launch?
Three. Hansebruck for the Global Infrastructure Income Fund: day 6 of 6, our SSI and their letter name different settlement places; first trade Nov 16. Nordhavn Bank for the Currency Alpha Fund: the prime brokerage agreement has been with the bank 6 days; first trade Nov 23. Ponte Vecchio for the European Real Estate fund: its LEI lapsed Oct 12 and the renewal was filed Oct 19.
Why did Q4 change?
The fund moved its registered office on September 11, 2026. The LEI record was updated on September 14, but the offering memorandum dated October 2026 still prints the old address. A broker compares our answer with the LEI record, so the old address would have been queried or rejected. I used the new address and asked Legal to fix the OM in its next supplement.
What did the agents hold overnight?
Two new holds, each with its reason: the Emerging Markets Local Debt Fund's W-8BEN-E (the GIIN differs from the IRS list), and Hansebruck's settlement instructions (the settlement place differs). In all, 9 openings are held across the firm; none moves until a person decides.
What must I sign today?
Four things: Sakuragawa's KYC pack once compliance signs (expected by noon), the Korean chaser to Gyeongbok, Indrapura's 47-answer pack, and the director change on the Japan Value Equity Fund. The first one decides whether the Asia fund trades on Nov 2.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The rules every opening runs on are settings. Each change is a new version that a second person approves, and it is on the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Answer confidence below which a specialist must review it | 90% | 80% to 98%, with the effect on last week's 3,912 drafted answers shown before you propose it |
| Ownership, PEP, sanctions and source-of-funds answers | Always signed by compliance | Edited as a draft of the next rules version; a second person approves |
| A counterparty threshold stricter than our pack | Drafted from the register; compliance signs (KYC policy §4.2) | Edited as a draft of the next rules version; a second person approves |
| Any Checker disagreement | Blocks submission until a person decides | Edited as a draft of the next rules version; a second person approves |
| Fund LEI lapsed | Holds every new opening for that fund | Edited as a draft of the next rules version; a second person approves |
| Service level per leg | KYC pack 2 · tax forms 2 · agreements 5 · SSIs 1 · system setup 1 business days | Set per leg; the Relay agent plans and chases on this clock |
| Chasers and escalation | Chase at 2 and 4 days of no reply; team lead at 1 day of negative slack; Global Head of Investment Operations at 3 | Chasers in the counterparty's language, from approved templates, approved by a person |
| Data residency and retention | US funds US East · EU and UK funds Frankfurt · APAC funds Singapore · 7 years after the relationship ends | Legal holds override deletion; models run in the region that holds the data |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “typical” = published figures (a market data provider's counterparty onboarding fact sheet — 40+ days to onboard a new account and deploy capital, the provider's own figure; TABB Group research for DTCC — about 20% of trade fails from incorrect standing settlement instructions; Cerulli Associates — 1,132 new US ETFs in 2025). Rules named on this page: the FinCEN CDD rule, 31 CFR 1010.230; the IRS Instructions for Form W-8BEN-E; Advisers Act Rule 204-2. People, firms, funds and counterparties named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Counterparty Onboarding is counterparty onboarding software for asset managers: it opens fund accounts at brokers, FCMs and FX banks, from each counterparty's own KYC questionnaire and tax forms to agreements, settlement instructions and system setup. Eight agents answer the broker's form in its own language from approved fund documents, check every answer against the entity master and the LEI record, complete W-8BEN-E and CRS forms and plan each opening back from the fund's first trade date. A specialist prepares, a different team lead approves, compliance signs ownership and AML answers, and trading operations signs the fund trade-ready.
For each broker, FCM or FX bank a fund will trade with, the onboarding team answers the counterparty's KYC questionnaire and sends the fund's documents, provides a W-8BEN-E or W-9 and a CRS self-certification, agrees the terms, FCM documents or ISDA and CSA, exchanges standing settlement instructions, and sets up the OMS, FIX session, accounting and custodian. Counterparty Onboarding draws those as five legs of one lane and hands each finished leg to its next owner.
Industry figures put a new account at 40 days or more before capital can be deployed. In the working solution, the sample Sakuragawa opening went from the broker's form to trade-ready in 3 days, against the demo firm's usual 19, and its report shows a 6.4-day median over the last 90 days. The design goal is about 5 days per fund and counterparty, measured in the live solution.
The FinCEN CDD rule has brokers and FCMs identify every owner at 25% or more and one control person, and many counterparties ask more. The agents compare each question with the firm's standard pack and KYC policy; when a broker asks for owners at 10%, they draft the extra answers from the register of members, cite the investors' consent to disclosure and route them to compliance to sign.
Yes. The Forms agent completes W-8BEN-E, W-9, CRS self-certifications and local forms such as Japan's CRS notification from the entity master, runs 14 checks on each — including that the GIIN on line 9a is on the IRS FFI list under the same name — computes the expiry and sends the form for the director's e-signature. A form with a failed check is never sent, and tax operations approves each one.
The Checker agent compares every fund record with the LEI registry each morning. Under the firm's rule, a lapsed LEI holds every new opening for that fund until the renewal is through; in the working solution, the European Real Estate fund's LEI lapsed on October 12 and its Ponte Vecchio opening is held, with the renewal filed on October 19.
Yes. The agents draft, check, plan and chase; they never send anything to a counterparty without an approved submission, never sign, never release settlement instructions and never activate a counterparty in the OMS. A team lead who did not prepare the pack approves it, compliance signs every ownership and AML answer, a second person releases SSIs, and trading operations signs trade-ready.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your KYC policy and standard pack, the agreement playbook, your entity master and a sample of past broker questionnaires — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own counterparty forms first.
Target 20–30% fewer fails, each fix cited and checked before the market’s cut-off.
1-min demoStandard Settlement Instruction ManagementEvery SSI change proven at the source and called back before a dollar moves.
1-min demoPosition and Cash ReconciliationEvery break explained from its source before the NAV is struck, every fix proved first.
1-min demoWe'll run Counterparty Onboarding on a sample of your own broker questionnaires, tax forms and fund documents.