FundSERV's Standards Steering Committee (SSC) has passed a motion to defer the release of Helpfile v19, originally scheduled for release in June 08, to June 09. The decision was made in consultation with the Electronic Standards Group (ESG), the committee empowered to oversee the enhancements to the annual ESG Helpfile release.

A proposal to defer the release was tabled at the July SSC meeting

following a discussion on what updates were on track for the 2008 release. Committee members concluded that the proposed upgrades did not justify the cost of a release to the industry.

"When you look at the time and effort the industry incurs to implement a Helpfile release, you need to make sure the upgraded version is worth the effort," says Cameron Murray, chair of the SSC. "After a cost benefit analysis, the SSC members felt that some of the proposed upgrades scheduled for next year's release were essentially maintenance items that could easily be captured in point releases instead."

The SSC's conclusion was substantiated once the ESG acknowledged that the most significant update they were considering, namely In-Cash Transfer, would not be ready in time to make the deadline for next year's release date. This made the decision to defer the release until 2009 much easier.

In-Cash Transfer is a proposed upgrade that would utilize FundSERV's network to electronically transfer monies between manufacturers on a Client Name held account, eliminating the need for physical cheques.

Michelle Fox, chair of the ESG, says that even though the release has been deferred, the ESG work-to-date has not been in vain. "All the work the ESG members have accomplished over the last year will be instrumental to the v19 release, as well as to the periodic point releases. We'll continue to build on what we've accomplished so far, and use the next few years to build new standards into v19 that should make it well worth the wait."

Now that the Helpfile has been postponed until 2009, the plan is to continue to investigate the viability of the proposed In-Cash Transfer already in progress, look into further accommodating segregated funds, and, most importantly, to investigate ways to implement other potential industry-wide standards that would be extremely beneficial to the investment fund community, including Client Name.

If all things go according to plan, the June 2009 Helpfile should be an all-encompassing release with significant upgrades.

"Sometimes I think we're a victim of our own success," says Murray. "In such a short period of time, we've managed to capture all the low hanging fruit, leaving us with the more complex issues — like Client Name — to solve, which take time. Now that we have some additional time, I'm confident we'll be able to make significant progress towards the potential standardization of those issues."