Modernizing trust: How U.S. Bank is transforming the client experience

More than 192,000 Global Corporate Trust client accounts migrated to new custody platform

This February, U.S. Bank Global Corporate Trust clients received account statements that looked notably different than ones in the past. They had a fresh, modern look that delivered more details on their accounts than before.

The new statements were just one of the many improvements for the client and employee experience courtesy of a migration to a new trust accounting system, SEI Wealth Platform (SWP). The undertaking represents nearly six years of strategic planning and execution to upgrade to a cutting-edge and scalable new platform that allows transactions across multiple markets and currencies, better aligning with the demands of the bank’s global client base.

The new SWP platform “incorporates multiple surround systems under a single platform, allowing us to better serve, grow and provide the latest technology solutions to meet our and our clients’ needs well into the future,” said Jeffrey Awsumb, head of Wealth, Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking (WCIB) product transformation and program sponsor.

One of the internal benefits of the new SWP system is it no longer requires manual intervention to initiate overnight investment of cash in an account, said Ilias Gerontidis, a senior vice president in Global Corporate Trust whose team led the business through the transition. Now, once the account is turned on for “sweep,” the system will initiate that processing once cash is deposited into the account.

“This saves time and effort, and mitigates the risk of internal teams not initiating the buy transaction in a timely manner,” Gerontidis said.

As of the end of January, more than 192,000 accounts have been migrated to SWP. The first major client conversion took place in September 2022, with 10,000 accounts transitioning, and continued in large batches over the next several years before concluding in the U.S. in January. The bank plans to migrate Global Corporate Trust in Europe next.

Part of the reason the upgrade took so long was the bank wanted to minimize the disruption to clients, which meant picking a three-day weekend at the end of the month and avoiding the first month after a quarter ended. The migration also involved training hundreds of employees both on their day-to-day usage of the new system and their specific business line needs.

“Modernizing a legacy system like this was no small feat,” said Leslie DeRoss, head of collateralized loan obligation (CLO) strategy and innovation and a project lead. “Our goal was always to improve both client experience and internal efficiency – without sacrificing stability.”

The SWP platform update is part of the broader investment in technology underway across WCIB. WCIB has experienced immense growth over the last five years, with assets under custody and administration growing more than 55% between Jan. 1, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2024.

“It’s important for us to simplify the client experience and the employee experience so we can continue to be viewed as the market leader,” said Jay Martin, president of Investment Services. “We’re always looking at how we can create efficiencies internally, which at the end of the day improves data quality, our interactions with clients and the transparency that they have into their accounts.”