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Online Money Market Fund Trading Portals Break $300 Billion in Assets. Driven by the unprecedented surge in institutional money fund assets in 2007, online money market mutual fund trading portals have broken above $300 billion in assets outstanding, according to Crane Data's latest estimate in the new January issue of Money Fund Intelligence. New entrants in the "portal" space, including offerings by UBS, Wachovia, and Union Bank of California, have added to growth. The addition of high-yielding funds to menus, including new top-yielding and/or restricted funds from Dreyfus, Fidelity, Janus, and Reserve, among others, has also driven the asset totals upwards. Portals' money fund assets grew by approximately 35% in 2007, slightly less than the overall growth of institutional money funds. They now account for about 15.5% of the $1.95 trillion in total institutional money fund assets, though the market share is down a touch from mid-2007's 16%. Portals continue to add features and analytics too. Institutional Cash Distributors (ICD, www.icdfunds.com) just announced a strategic parnership with Clearwater Analytics to add accounting, compliance and performance reporting. ICD also has added new funds from Barclays, RBS, Northern Trust, Reserve, Deutsche, and Standard Chartered. See MFI for a full listing of portals, asset levels and news updates.
