Article’s

Abstract— Global custodian banks operate fund accounting functions that process trillions of dollars in daily net asset value calculations, reconciliations, and regulatory reporting, making operational efficiency in this function a direct driver of cost, risk, and client trust. State Street Corporation, which reported approximately $53.8 trillion in assets under custody and administration and around 52,000 employees across more than 100 markets at the end of 2025, exemplifies the scale at which fund accounting automation decisions play out. Industry surveys indicate that automation adoption in financial-services back offices remains uneven: while a majority of institutions have begun deploying robotic process automation and workflow tools, many finance leaders report that only a modest share of their processes are actually automated end-to-end, and technology-transformation programmes at asset managers and custodians have been associated with efficiency gains of roughly 30 percent when implemented as integrated, firm-wide initiatives rather than isolated tools. This proposed study develops and operationalises a research model in which Automation affects Operational Efficiency in fund accounting both directly and indirectly through Process Integration, with the strength of this relationship contingent on the organisation’s Digital Transformation maturity. Grounded in the Resource-Based View, Dynamic Capabilities Theory, and the Technology-Organization-Environment framework, the paper develops five hypotheses, a four-construct measurement model, and a nine-step PLS-SEM based analysis plan for testing the proposed moderated-mediation model using primary survey data from fund accounting, operations, and technology professionals. The paper is intended as a replicable, publication-ready research design rather than a report of completed fieldwork, and it identifies the data-collection and measurement steps required before the model can be estimated. Keywords: automation, operational efficiency, fund accounting, process integration, digital transformation, robotic process automation, custodian banks, PLS-SEM.