Asset Servicing Times: Black Knight Media's Beckenham News Service for Custody and Fund Administration
Asset Servicing Times is a Beckenham-based news service covering the global asset servicing industry — the custody, fund administration, payments and financial technology businesses that keep institutional investment running behind the scenes. Published by Black Knight Media Ltd, it appears as a fortnightly magazine with an accompanying website carrying daily news, and it presents itself as the primary source of global securities services news and analysis and the only free-to-read asset servicing resource of its kind.
Asset servicing rarely makes headlines outside the trade press, yet it underpins trillions in pension, fund and institutional assets. Asset Servicing Times exists for the custodians, administrators, technology providers and asset managers who work in that infrastructure, reporting their deals, appointments, product launches, regulation and awards in the detail that general financial media cannot spare for the sector.
Overview
The publication combines a fortnightly magazine, produced in digital and printed formats and supplied free of charge, with a website updated with daily and breaking news. Its publisher describes its purpose as keeping readers informed of the latest custody, fund administration and fintech news in easy-to-digest issues that inform, educate and explain, and its website also provides information on asset servicing events around the world.
Asset Servicing Times is one of three industry titles from Black Knight Media, alongside Securities Finance Times and Captive Insurance Times. The three share a Beckenham base, a publisher and a free-to-read model supported by advertising, sponsorship and events — including the Asset Servicing Times Industry Excellence Awards, launched in 2021, which have become a fixture of the sector's calendar.
History and Founding
Black Knight Media was established in 2010, and Asset Servicing Times launched in the autumn of that year, at the same time as its sister title for securities finance. The timing placed the new publication in a market rebuilding after the financial crisis, when custody and fund administration were under fresh scrutiny over risk, regulation and the safety of client assets, and when the industry lacked a free, dedicated news source of its own.
Early editions show a fully formed trade magazine. By 2013 the title was publishing issues numbered into the eighties, with an editorial team based at Provident House, 6–20 Burrell Row, Beckenham, listing Mark Dugdale as editor and Georgina Lavers as deputy editor, and Justin Lawson as publisher. The fortnightly rhythm, people-moves coverage and industry advertising visible in those early issues established the template the title still follows.
Ownership and Leadership
Asset Servicing Times is published by Black Knight Media Ltd, and its publisher is Justin Lawson, who is also described as co-founder of the company. Lawson is the public face of the title: he presents its awards, comments on winners, and leads the company's community and charitable activity in Beckenham. Editorial staff work across the Black Knight Media titles — Rebecca Butcher, for example, was appointed editor across the group's publications, having previously served as acting editor.
The company recruits its reporters to cover securities services, securities lending and captive insurance together, seeking journalists able to source and write exclusive news, detailed features and market analysis, produce the fortnightly magazines and attend and report on industry events around the world, with international travel to Asia, the United States and Europe a stated part of the role. The chosen candidates join the team based in Beckenham, just outside central London — close enough to the City to cover it daily, but rooted in its Kent community.
Coverage Areas
Coverage is defined by the asset servicing value chain. Custody news — global custodians, sub-custodians, digital asset custody and network management — sits alongside fund administration, covering administrators, transfer agency, fund accounting and client service. Payments, securities services technology and fintech feature prominently, as do corporate actions, data services, regulation and the environmental, social and governance initiatives increasingly attached to servicing mandates.
People moves are a staple, reflecting a sector in which senior appointments at custodians and administrators signal strategy to clients and competitors alike. The title also reports the industry's own awards, mandates and partnerships: when a global custodian wins a servicing mandate or a technology provider launches a corporate actions or proxy voting product, Asset Servicing Times is among the first places that news is recorded for the specialist audience.
Services and Distribution
The magazine and website are free to read, a point the publisher emphasises as unique in the sector: Black Knight Media describes its titles as the only free-to-read business publications in their industry sectors. Revenue comes instead from advertising, sponsorship and events, with the fortnightly issues distributed in digital and printed formats to industry participants, from senior bankers to fintech companies.
Distribution is international because the industry is international. Custody and fund administration are concentrated in centres including London, Dublin, Luxembourg, New York, Boston, Toronto, Singapore and Hong Kong, and the awards results and news coverage reflect that geography, with winners and stories drawn from the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. The website's events listings extend the service beyond news, helping readers track the conferences and gatherings at which the industry does much of its business.
Industry Excellence Awards
In 2021 Black Knight Media expanded into awards, launching the Asset Servicing Times Industry Excellence Awards. The inaugural winners were announced on 16 November 2021; CIBC Mellon, for instance, won the global Client Service for Custody award and Americas Fund Administrator of the Year, thanking the editorial team, publisher and judging panel — and the second annual awards followed in November 2022, when CIBC Mellon again won Client Service for Custody. Publisher Justin Lawson presented the awards as a celebration of talented and dedicated firms, individuals and departments across the industry.
The awards' categories map the sector precisely: regional fund administrators and custodians for the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, Latin America and single markets; global custodians and administrators; digital custodians; client service awards; funds technology and data providers; corporate actions technology; regulatory solutions; digital asset initiatives; and individual honours including Rising Star, Industry Inspiration and Lifetime Achievement. In 2025 BNP Paribas' securities services business reported winning European and Asia Pacific custodian honours and innovation in custody at the awards, capping a year in which it collected dozens of industry awards.
Digital Platforms
The website, assetservicingtimes.com, carries the daily news flow, the magazine archive and the awards programme, including published winners lists by year. Digital editions make the fortnightly magazine available to the global readership without print distribution costs, while the site organises content by news section so specialists in custody, fund administration or technology can follow their own segment.
Social and community channels support the titles, and the publisher uses its platforms to promote its events and charitable fundraising — the awards themselves have served as fundraising occasions, with more than £12,100 raised for the mental health charity Mind and a defibrillator funded for a local junior football club from donations at the November 2021 awards.
Community and Local Roots
Unusually for a global financial title, Asset Servicing Times has a visible local footprint. Black Knight Media stepped in to supply a new kit for Beckenham Town's under-13 girls' football team, who play in the Surrey County Women's and Girls Football League, with publisher Justin Lawson saying that being able to support a local club or charity meant a lot to him and noting the pressure the pandemic and the cost of living crisis had placed on grassroots clubs. The head coach of the junior club thanked the company for its continued generosity.
That local engagement reflects the company's structure: a small, owner-led publisher whose staff live and work in the area, even though its readers and advertisers are spread across the world's financial centres. It gives the title a character distinct from the London-headquartered publishing groups with which it competes for the industry's attention.
Notable Work
The title's most notable work is its sustained, specialist record of an industry that is otherwise sparsely documented. Its archive of fortnightly issues and daily news captures more than a decade of consolidation among custodians and administrators, the rise of digital asset servicing, the growth of private markets administration and the steady digitisation of corporate actions, proxy voting and fund distribution — developments visible in its awards categories as much as in its news pages.
The awards programme itself has become part of that record. Winners lists preserve, year by year, which firms the industry judged strongest in each region and function, from global custodians such as BNP Paribas and State Street to specialist technology and data providers. For researchers and market participants, those lists are a useful snapshot of competitive standing in a sector where league tables are otherwise hard to obtain.
Recent Developments
The Industry Excellence Awards have continued annually since 2021, with categories expanding to reflect the market — digital asset infrastructure, outstanding innovation in clearing and corporate actions, ESG initiatives and partnership awards among the recent additions. Shortlists and winners continue to draw entries from the largest global custodians and administrators as well as regional specialists and technology firms.
For worldnm.com, Asset Servicing Times is a clear example of the Beckenham-based Black Knight Media model: a free, fortnightly-plus-daily specialist news service, launched in autumn 2010, covering custody, fund administration, payments and fintech for a global professional readership, and extended since 2021 by an awards programme that has become a recognised marker in its industry. Its news, magazine and awards are published at assetservicingtimes.com.
