- Before
- “Tell me which station is red, why, and what I do about it.” Her plan lived in a spreadsheet nobody else saw, and she chased every team by email.
- Now
- Opens each mandate as one map with the agents' reasons beside it, asks why in plain words, and approves the one request that fixes a held line.
Institutional client onboarding, one mandate from award to funded
Stichting Pensioenfonds Veldhaven, a Dutch industry-wide pension fund, awarded Quillfield Capital a $1.40 billion Global Investment Grade Credit mandate on Monday, September 28, funding in euros on Friday, November 20. It is now day 22 of 53. The onboarding manager works the mandate with seven agents: she asks them why in plain words, sees the page behind every answer, and approves or rejects what they propose. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
- 01Tuesday, 9:10 a.m.
What needs her, and what the agents did overnight
Hannah Whitlock · Client Onboarding ManagerHannah's home shows 46 onboardings in flight, $20.9B to fund across 17 countries, 10 funding in the next 30 days and 5 held by the agents, each waiting on a person with the reason cited. Overnight the KYC agent read 38 documents in 6 languages, the Screening agent screened 64 parties, and the Account setup agent coded 25 of 27 Veldhaven guidelines into pre-trade rules. Her first item: “Veldhaven: the signatory list names 3, the registry authorizes 2.”
“What the agents did since yesterday” — every line cited, and each one opens the screen where the work was done.
- 02Review and decide
The onboarding map, and a plain question
Hannah Whitlock and the KYC agentThe mandate opens as a map: six lines (agreement, KYC and AML, tax forms, signers and bank details, custody and accounts, trading setup), 21 stations, all running to Funded on Fri Nov 20. Thirteen are done and three are held, with 11 business days of slack. Hannah clicks Authorized signers and asks the agents, “Why can't Ruben Stolk sign?” The KYC agent answers with its sources: the registry gives the power to sign to the chair and the secretary together and lists no proxy holders.
“Article 14.3 lets the board grant a power of attorney by resolution, so one board resolution fixes it.” — KYC agent
- 03Show the Dutch text
The registry in Dutch, beside the English
KYC agentPage 2 of the Chamber of Commerce (KvK) extract opens with the Dutch original on the left and the English the agents read on the right, the same phrases highlighted: “Gezamenlijk bevoegd (met de secretaris)” — jointly authorized, with the secretary — and “Geen gevolmachtigden ingeschreven” — no proxy holders registered. The passage was read by the KYC agent and re-read by the Check agent. None of the onboarding's 17 documents needed a certified translation.
“Read by the KYC agent and re-read by the Check agent.”
- 04Documents and KYC
17 documents, 10 policy checks, two that fail
Ravi Menon · KYC AnalystRavi's file holds 17 documents in Dutch and English, from the KvK extract, the articles (Statuten) and the De Nederlandsche Bank register entry to the board list, passports and the IMA, each extracted value with its page and a Correct button. Eight of 10 KYC policy checks pass; two fail: Ruben Stolk has no authority on the registry and no power of attorney, and the authorized signatory list's “any one alone” contradicts the registry's “jointly”. The Check agent's blind re-read agreed on every value but one: it read the fund's pension assets in the 2025 annual report as €39.4 billion, the KYC agent as €38.6 billion. Neither agent chose and nothing was averaged; both readings went to Ravi to decide.
A foundation has no shareholders, so no one owns 25%; the six board members control it, and the chair and secretary are the senior managing officials.
- 058:54 a.m.
Bank details not accepted; a call-back a person must make
Settlement agentThe settlement instructions letter of Oct 14 — EUR account NL57 RBBK 0417 2290 55 at the custodian — passes the account-name, custodian and BIC checks, but it is signed by Ruben Stolk alone. The Settlement agent does not accept it. It builds the call-back instead: once his authority is proven, Daniel Cho calls Ingrid van Dalen on +31 30 721 4400, the number in the CRM that Tomás Arriaga verified on March 3 during the manager search, never the number on the letter, and Wen Li Tan approves as the second person.
The Settlement agent never verifies bank details itself and never releases them.
- 069:03 a.m.
One plain request instead of three
Planner agentThe Check agent re-read all four documents blind and agreed. The Planner agent worked out the slack — funding on Nov 20 holds if the resolution arrives by Nov 4 — while custody, cash accounts and trading setup keep moving. It drafted one letter to Ingrid van Dalen, Secretary of the Board, asking the board for one of two things — a resolution giving Mr. Stolk a power of attorney, or a new signatory list without him, signed by the chair and the secretary together — and for the chair and the secretary to confirm the bank details with their signatures. Hannah approves it as the maker; she cannot send it.
“One request instead of three: the signer, the signing rule and the bank-details signatures all have one fix, a board decision.” — Planner agent
- 07Approved and sent
The client sees one clear ask
Tomás Arriaga · Client Service DirectorHannah approved the request; Tomás sends it through the client portal and email. The portal shows it exactly as Ingrid van Dalen sees it, with no internal checks and no agent names. Her Global Investment Grade Credit account shows 4 of 6 steps complete and one thing needed: the board resolution or a new signatory list, received by November 4 to stay on track for November 20.
“One thing we need from you.” — the client's portal
- 089:15 a.m.
The MLRO approves the risk rating with a reason code
Claire Dunmore · Money Laundering Reporting OfficerThe Screening agent screened 11 parties: 9 clear, one domestic PEP confirmed — board member Annelies Brandsma, a member of the Provincial Council of Gelderland from 2015 to 2023 — and one adverse-media hit ruled out as a different entity. Ravi prepared a Standard rating; a PEP on the board means the MLRO approves. Claire signs with the reason code “Approved — PEP, domestic, no adverse findings.” Ravi could not have approved it: he prepared it.
“Signed as Claire Dunmore, Money Laundering Reporting Officer · recorded in the audit trail.”
- 09Meanwhile
Every other line keeps moving toward Funded
Account setup agent and Daniel ChoCustody account RBB-4471-0920 is open at the client's custodian, the EUR cash account is confirmed and the USD one is pending. Portfolio QF-GIGC-VELD01 is set up in portfolio accounting and the order management system, the fee schedule — 14 bp on the first $500 million, 11 bp above — is in billing, and the W-8BEN-E passed 16 of 16 checks. Two guidelines, the thermal-coal exclusion and the 5% limit on BBB- with negative outlook, go to investment compliance. The go-live sign-off lists five prerequisites still open.
One onboarding manager signs the go-live and a second checks it; the Account setup agent never switches an account live.
- 10On the record
Every action, agent or person, in one hash-chained trail
People and agentsThe audit trail shows the morning in order: the KYC agent's hold, the Settlement agent's refusal, the Check agent's blind re-read and the one disagreement it sent to Ravi with both readings, the Planner agent's draft, Hannah's approval, Tomás's send and Claire's signature, with the reason code on every decision, the evidence for every action and each agent's version. One click builds the complete onboarding file for an auditor or a regulator: 17 documents original and English, every decision with its signatures, the agents' runs with their versions and the hash chain.
“Each action carries the hash of the one before it, so a changed or removed action breaks every link after it.”