Position Transfer Fund (PTF)

Position transfer fund (PTF) is a standardized, automated method of processing transfers of mutual fund assets between brokers, banks, and mutual fund companies. With this transfer type, an ACATS member firm, acting as either receiver or deliverer, initiates a transfer, where the mutual fund company is the contra-side to the transfer. The mutual fund company responds to the transfer registration request by either accepting or rejecting the registration instruction received through the ACATS Fund/SERV interface.

The position transfer fund provides instructions to the fund company to register a mutual fund asset between the customer’s account at the fund and the customer’s account at the firm. The activity could be either from the fund to the firm or from the firm to the fund, depending on the deliverer and receiver. ACATS allows only one mutual fund asset per position transfer fund.

The guidelines for position transfer fund transactions are:

  • Request contains only one mutual fund asset.
  • Firms are Fund/SERV eligible (Settlement Location 10) in the ACATS PARTICIPANT MASTER file.
  • Contra-party to the transfer must be a mutual fund company, labeled as Participant Type 3–Fund in the ACATS PARTICIPANT MASTER file.
  • Mutual fund asset must be ACATS-Fund/SERV eligible.
  • Mutual fund asset must belong to the mutual fund company who is the counterparty to the transfer.

If the transfer does not meet these conditions, ACATS rejects the submission of the position transfer fund.

Notes

  • The record lengths differ depending on if the firm is the receiver or the deliverer. When a firm submits a PTF as receiver, the asset (AT) record is 431 bytes, the same length as a PTR. When a firm submits a PTF as deliverer, the AT record is 550 bytes, the same length as a PTD. In both records, the firm can indicate whether an F=Full or P=Partial mutual fund position should be registered again.
  • ACATS does not apply an incentive charge to either the receiver or deliverer in a PTF transfer. A PTF always settles free of value.

Position Transfer Fund (PTF) Process

The following table shows the position transfer fund (PTF) process flow.

Position Transfer Fund (PTF) Process Flow
Time Process flow Status
Day of input

The firm, acting as either receiver or deliverer, enters the TI record and mutual fund asset by 3:00 PM Eastern Time. The transfer starts in the 200–Review status.

When the firm is the receiver:

The firm submits a fund registration instruction by 4:00 PM Eastern Time the day after input. If the firm does not provide a fund registration instruction, ACATS generates a default registration instruction on behalf of the firm.

When the fund is the receiver:

The receiving firm can include the fund registration (FR) record at the same time as the transfer input (TI) and asset transfer (AT) records on the initial request. When transmitting the file, the FR record must directly follow the associated AT record. In this scenario, ACATS assigns the same transfer control and asset sequence number as the asset preceding it. Alternatively, the receiving can separately submit the FR record in any subsequent cycle the day of initiation. In this scenario, the submitting firm must populate the ACATS control number and asset sequence number.

If an FR record is not submitted in any subsequent cycle, ACATS generates a default registration instruction on behalf of the fund by combining the TI and AT records. The fund does not submit a fund registration instruction to ACATS.

200–Review
End of day If the fund company acknowledges the registration instruction through the ACATS-Fund/SERV interface within the allotted time, ACATS updates the PTF transfer 310–Settle Close status at the end of the day. 310–Settle Close

If the fund company rejects the registration instruction, or does not respond to it, through the ACATS-Fund/SERV interface in the allotted time, ACATS rejects the PTF transfer.

ACATS transfers that receive no response from the mutual fund after a day and a half are deleted from Fund/SERV. For example, if a fund receives a record on Wednesday evening, the fund has until 11:00 AM on Friday. to respond to the record. If Fund/SERV does not receive a response by Friday at 11:00 AM, Fund/SERV deletes the record.

 600–Reject