The purpose was to gain an insight into the operation of the custody business and form a view about the SIB's recommendation and the form an order might take. The Treasury is most grateful to those who provided their views. As a result, the Treasury advised that the economic secretary should accept the SIB's recommendation, and on 9th May that decision was announced in another place. The Treasury issued a consultation document in June setting out the way in which we proposed to put this onto the statute book. The document was circulated widely and there were just over 60 responses.
Custodians come in a range of shapes and sizes.
At one extreme is the global custodian. Typically, this is a multinational bank, not necessarily based in the UK, offering services to major businesses across the world. The custody operation in either case may be conducted in-house or be bought in. There is also the trustee of a fund holding assets safely on behalf of a child. The management of the assets in such a case could be placed with an investment manager but the trustee himself could be involved in providing custody services.