Investment Operations Analyst
92% skill overlap
Your role
IBOR & Investment Data Analyst
Full profileYour role
Also known as ABOR Analyst · Aladdin Operations Analyst · IBOR Analyst · IBOR Specialistand 2 more
Investment Book of Record Analyst · Investment Data Analyst
- L3 salary
- Not published yet
- Upcoming dated changes
- 16 changes ahead
What the role does
An IBOR (investment book of record) and investment data analyst keeps the positions, cash and transaction data that portfolio managers, traders and risk teams use during the day accurate and complete. The role sits in asset managers, asset owners and outsourced investment operations providers. It reconciles the IBOR against the ABOR (accounting book of record) and custodian records, fixes breaks, applies corporate actions and keeps data controls documented.
Read a day in the life
A day in the life
The day starts before the investment desks open. The analyst checks that overnight loads from custodians, fund accountants and trading systems have arrived and that start-of-day positions agree with yesterday's close. Breaks are sorted by size and age: a missing trade, a corporate action booked on the wrong date, a currency balance that does not match the bank statement. Each break gets a cause and an owner. Mid-morning the analyst answers portfolio managers who see an unexpected position or cash figure, and traces the record back through its lineage. Later come new trades and late allocations, cash forecasts for the funds, and control checks on prices and reference data. The afternoon often includes work on a data quality dashboard, a new fund launch or a system migration test. Before leaving, the analyst confirms that critical breaks are closed or escalated and writes a short handover for colleagues in another time zone.
Levels
- L1 Starting out
- L2 Independent
- L3 Senior or specialist
- L4 Leads a team or an area
- L5 Leads the function
Full level descriptions and job titles
The EFO level names are the common scale; job titles differ between employers.
| Level | What the work looks like | Typical years | Typical job titles |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 Starting out | Runs daily position and cash checks with a checklist, investigates simple breaks between IBOR, ABOR and custodian data, and learns the trade lifecycle and corporate action types under supervision. | 0-2 | Banks: Analyst, Junior Analyst, Associate (asset servicing), Trainee, GraduateAsset servicers: Junior, Specialist (entry), Officer |
| L2 Independent | Owns the daily IBOR control cycle for a set of funds, resolves breaks end to end with custodians and fund accountants, trains new joiners and is the first contact for portfolio managers' data questions. | 2-5 | Banks: Analyst / Senior Analyst, AssociateAsset servicers: Specialist, Senior Specialist, Senior Officer |
| L3 Senior or specialist | Handles complex instruments and exceptions, designs data quality rules and lineage documentation, and represents investment data in projects such as fund launches, platform migrations or new custodian onboarding. | 5-9 | Banks: Senior Associate, AVP, Assistant ManagerAsset servicers: Senior Specialist, Expert, Team Lead (small team) |
| L4 Leads a team or an area | Leads an investment data team or region, owns the control framework and key performance indicators, manages the relationship with outsourced providers and is the escalation point for material data incidents. | 8-14 | Banks: VP, Manager, Senior ManagerAsset servicers: Team Lead, Manager, Head of Section |
| L5 Leads the function | Accountable for investment data across the firm or a legal entity, sets the data operating model and standards, decides on platforms and outsourcing, and reports data risk to senior management and boards. | 12+ | Banks: Director, Executive Director, Managing Director, Head of functionAsset servicers: Head of Department, Director |
Skills
Where the skill weights come from
Each role lists its skills with a tier and a weight. The weights of one role add up to 100 percent.
Source: the EFO role catalogue, built from the ESCO classification and reviewed by the editors.
The percentage is the skill's share of the role; the bars are drawn relative to the anchor skill, which is shown full.
Critical
- Investment book of record and portfolio dataWeight 12.9%Relevant to you
- Data governance, quality and lineageWeight 8.6%Relevant to you
- Trade lifecycleWeight 8.6%Relevant to you
- Corporate actions processingWeight 8.6%Relevant to you
- Period-end close and reconciliationsWeight 8.6%Relevant to you
Important and supporting skills 17
Important
- Net asset value calculationWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Custody and asset servicingWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Settlement and fails managementWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Data cleaning and validationWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Advanced Microsoft ExcelWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Attention to detailWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Investigative reasoning on anomaliesWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Working to tight deadlinesWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
- Querying data with SQLWeight 4.3%Relevant to you
Supporting
- Financial markets knowledgeWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Performance measurement and attributionWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Fund regulation and structures (UCITS, AIFMD, US 1940 Act)Weight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Stakeholder managementWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Control mindset (what could go wrong)Weight 2.1%Relevant to you
- Process mapping and redesignWeight 2.1%Relevant to you
Useful
- Python for data analysisWeight 0.7%Relevant to you
- Adaptability to changeWeight 0.7%Relevant to you
Processes
The work the role takes part in.
- Corporate actions
- Data management and governance
- Financial reporting and accounting
- Investment and reference data
- Reconciliations
- Securities settlement
- Trade capture and booking
- Trade confirmation and affirmation
What each process covers
- Corporate actionsMain
- Data management and governanceMain
- Financial reporting and accountingMain
- Investment and reference dataMain
- ReconciliationsMain
- Securities settlementMain
- Trade capture and bookingMain
- Trade confirmation and affirmationMain
- Custody and safekeepingSupporting
- Fund accounting and NAVSupporting
Where the role concentrates
How AI is changing the role
Automated reconciliation and matching tools already clear most routine position and cash breaks, and the European Banking Authority reports that financial firms increasingly use machine learning for data quality and anomaly detection.
Read the full assessment
Automated reconciliation and matching tools already clear most routine position and cash breaks, and the European Banking Authority reports that financial firms increasingly use machine learning for data quality and anomaly detection. Generative AI can draft break explanations and summarise custodian messages. Value shifts to work that needs judgement: deciding which data source is authoritative, designing controls and lineage, explaining exceptions to portfolio managers and testing new tools. The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025 lists AI and big data as the fastest-growing skills, so analysts who combine data governance with SQL or Python gain the most.
Dated changes for this role
- TARGET Services November 2026 releases moved to 28 November 2026Relevant to you
- ESMA guidelines on allocations and confirmations for T+1Relevant to you
- CSDR settlement discipline rules updated for T+1 in three stepsRelevant to you
- DORA register of information: 2027 annual submissionRelevant to you
- Swift defers SR2026 and the end of unstructured addressesRelevant to you
Worth knowing
Salary snapshot
Salary figures are not published yet
The L3 salary range for this role, with its sources, will appear here when the salaries section opens.
Certifications
- CFA Program Level I
Concepts to know
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Do this job? Suggest a correction
Sources
IBOR (Investment book of record)The investment book of record (IBOR) is the record of an asset manager's positions, cash and exposures used by portfolio managers and traders during the day, including trades not yet settled. The accounting book of record (ABOR) holds the official end-of-day positions used for the net asset value; differences between the two are reconciled.
Corporate actionA corporate action, or corporate event, is an action by an issuer that affects its securities and their holders, such as a dividend, a coupon payment, a stock split, a rights issue, a merger or a redemption. Events are mandatory, mandatory with choice, or voluntary, and must be processed along the whole custody chain.
Reference dataReference data is the slowly changing data used to classify or describe other data: country and currency codes, industry classifications, calendars, instrument identifiers and legal entity identifiers. Errors in it spread across every system that uses it.
Generative AIGenerative AI is a family of AI models that produce new content (text, code, images, audio) in response to a prompt, by learning patterns from very large datasets. In finance it is used for drafting, summarising documents, coding help and customer service assistants.
Data governanceData governance is the set of roles, policies, standards and forums that decide how data is defined, owned, protected and kept fit for use. It assigns accountability (data owners and stewards), sets quality thresholds and resolves disputes on definitions.
SQL (Structured Query Language)SQL is the standard language for defining, querying and changing data in relational databases, standardised as ISO/IEC 9075. Analysts use it to select, filter, join and aggregate tables; it is the most requested technical skill in finance data roles.