With half of mutual fund providers in Europe defining automation as switching on a fax machine, it is little surprise the industry is suffering from chronic inefficiency that costs billions each year. Despite increased awareness of the problems, progress towards solving them has been painfully slow.

Sebastien Chaker, a director in the investment funds division of Euroclear, the European settlement firm, said: "The present level of automation and standardisation in the fund industry across Europe is extremely poor. The problem lies with the fact that it's a highly fragmented market, with a multiplicity of distributors and transfer agents. It's not called the ‘spaghetti model' for nothing."