London-basedAviva Investors will make its UK domiciled retail funds available via Calastone’s transaction network, Calastone said in a statement yesterday.

Calastone, the cross-border transaction network for the mutual funds industry, said that Aviva Investors will benefit from its list of global fund distributors and aggregators through a single connection.

Aviva Investors’ third party administrator, IFDS, is connected to Calastone and therefore Aviva Investors can take advantage of STP efficiencies through automation of the entire mutual fund transaction lifecycle.

“Firms are clearly appreciating that irrespective of their current preferred protocol or messaging format, they immediately future proof their technology by connecting to Calastone and, become instantly ISO 20022 compliant reaping the benefits of STP,” said Kevin Lee, managing director of Calastone.

Calastone allows the mutual fund market to become fully electronic. Through the Calastone Transaction Network participants are able to send and receive instructions in any way they prefer, whatever their messaging protocol.