Prime brokerage is an industry still dominated by a small number of broker-dealers and global investment banks and, despite continued concerns about conflicts of interest and encroachment by third-party administrators, this does not look likely to change.

"The trends are towards inter-nationalisation, multi-strategy and asset concentration. So what managers require is a financier with global reach so they can access all of the markets they wish to invest in, a place with a huge product suite to accommodate all of their strategies, and a counterpart with a big and stable balance sheet to support those transactions and finance them," says Barry Bausano, co-head of global prime finance at Deutsche Bank.