In recent years, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) has pulled off the tricky task of wedding a universally lauded (and inevitably poll-topping) standard of client service to a determinedly innovative, bleeding-edge systems capability. Furthermore, the bank's breaching of the magic milestone of $1 trillion (&euro1.1 trillion) under custody seems not to have precipitated an erosion of service levels, at least for the moment.

This year the custodian has rolled out a series of highly focused technology platforms that draw on its strengths as a specialist provider in terms of flexibility and client service, the latest being BBH Strategic Synthesis, a Web-based US equity strategy research platform developed in conjunction with eBusiness integration firm BusinessEdge Solutions.