ALPS Fund Services, ALPS asset servicing arm, is preparing for what company executives expect to be a boom in fund launches in both alternative products and ETFs, and is investing resources accordingly.

"We continue to see a flow of new entrants into the mutual fund market," Jeremy May, president of ALPS Fund Services told MFWire recently. "With regards to alternative strategies, we are talking to a lot of hedge fund managers and institutional firms that are trying to take advantage of a market that is more open to non-core alternative strategies."

May said that his company's investments were focused in three primary areas:

They are:

Series Trusts
"We are launching a new series trust which will be our fourth.  We continue to see growth in this area and are being responsive to market demands by expanding our platform."

ETF Services
"We are providing administration and distribution services for ETFs.  We also have an ETF series trust platform through which we launch startup ETFs, similar to the open-end fund series trust.  We are seeing a lot of interest in that platform with the growth in the overall ETF space and continue to make investments there."

Hiring
"We are continuing to see a growth trend here.  Projecting 10% increase in staff in 2013."

The money for many of these investments, of course, comes from the 2011 purchase of ALPS by DST Systems.

May said that the resources available to ALPS from DST are significant.

"We have been able to take advantage of the depth of resources that DST has as a big tech company. We are undergoing significant investments in our underlying technology," he said.

In fact, he said, "Investing in the technology that goes into our service offerings is a big push for us. We have projects that go well into 2014."

It is perhaps no accident that one of the many job openings recently posted by DST was that for an alternative products director. 

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