How Handelsbanken Fonder AB Scales Data with Analytics Lab

As a Senior Performance Analyst at Handelsbanken Fonder AB – a wholly-owned subsidiary of Svenska Handelsbanken AB – Peter Skillemar has been an integral part of the Performance Research team for more than 17 years. From calculating the performance of Fonder’s mutual funds to validating the data surrounding institutional mandates, Skillemar’s role requires him to live and breathe high-quality data.

Svenska Handelsbanken AB is one of the biggest financial institutions operating in the Swedish market, with a reputation for excellence. It’s no surprise then that Handelsbanken Fonder AB is trusted among investors throughout the market, offering more than 100 funds (comprised of a mixture of active and passive funds alongside ETFs) with an AUM surpassing SEK 900 billion (just shy of GBP 65 billion).

Clearly, a data-centric role requires one vital resource – data. While Skillemar’s team previously relied on reports from Morningstar Direct, a unique opportunity arose to transition to Analytics Lab, a flexible coding environment within Direct that combines Morningstar’s data with JupyterLab, an open-source data-science tool.

The result? A dedicated platform where users can create custom analytics, data visualisations, and research narratives.

Migrating from one system to another can be a daunting and potentially disruptive process. But for Skillemar and the team, the move has yielded positive results.

“For many years we received ready-made comprehensive reports from Morningstar Sweden”, Skillemar notes. “Due to various changes, we needed to alter our workflows and technologies. We wanted to see what was possible within the Direct ecosystem, and that’s when Morningstar made us aware of Analytics Lab."

From the outset, it seemed like this would be the best solution to provide the in-depth reports and comprehensive data we needed to power our workflows. So, we started working closely with the Morningstar team to begin the migration journey.

In the beginning, we had a lot of help from the team in getting set up, ensuring our reports were programmed accurately, and just generally navigating the platform.

But from there, as we gradually became more familiar with Analytics Lab, we started to go in and play around with the space ourselves and make minor changes to the report structure.”

As a trusted market leader offering numerous funds, Handelsbanken Fonder AB’s data needs are extensive.

“The data we sort through and analyse is extremely comprehensive”, says Skillemar. “We use the reports we build in Analytics Lab to compare our fund offerings to those of our competitors, mainly looking at the Morningstar Star Rating to get an overview of a fund’s quality and assess the underlying data which makes up that rating.

We look at everything from risk to past performance, but an integral part of the process is looking beyond a single fund. We weigh all the funds within a fund company, both within our own organisation and our competitors’. This allows us to interrogate the data a bit more and add an extra layer of due diligence.

A fund can have a relatively high rating, but understanding the performance across different pillars can help you see the big picture. Where are their weaknesses? What are their strengths? What are they exposed to? We aggregate all of this to understand where a fund currently sits, but also forecast how it might perform moving forwards.”

An essential part of migrating to any new system is clearly identifying the positives, whether that’s return on investment, time saved, or other efficiencies gained. For Skillemar, the benefits have been clear.

“The thing that springs to mind instantly is the amount of time we’ve saved. With the data itself, instead of searching and extracting it within Direct, sometimes hundreds of rows of data, we’re able to use predefined calculations in Analytics Lab to get what we need in a clean and structured way. It’s data that’s ready to go, for example, to be turned into a chart immediately. You can extract various data points for much more detailed and targeted analysis.

I think about how sometimes a portfolio manager will ask for insights about a specific fund that has performed particularly well, due to sustainability reasons, as an example. Perhaps that manager was not allowed to have that security, so they’ll use the data to assess which of their competitors have or have had this security. It helps them benchmark their performance and get much-needed context as to why they’ve performed better or worse.”

The most successful firms can integrate new technologies and systems into their processes to find a solution that truly works for them. As Skillemar notes, navigating and working with Analytics Lab proved to be quite intuitive.

“We went from regular reports from Morningstar Direct to the Analytics Lab coding space. What’s been such a benefit is that even if you’re not an expert when it comes to Python, the integration it has with Direct means you can work with the data you’ve already produced, or you can use the preexisting interactive research library.

You just pull the data in. When I say pull it in, I mean that quite literally. I was able to drag and drop the data straight into Analytics Lab. That simple interface or functionality yields more sophisticated and nuanced insights.”

While markets fluctuate, some things stay the same. For Handelsbanken, their needs remain consistent – a coding environment that’s cutting-edge, collaborative, efficient, and user-friendly. It seems inevitable then that they chose to continue their partnership with Morningstar.

“We have a longstanding relationship with Morningstar in various parts of our organisation”, says Skillemar. “On the performance side, Morningstar’s data and research has been invaluable, whether it’s the Morningstar Star Rating or the Sustainability Rating. These metrics are widely used and recognised among retail and private investors and used across the majority of fund companies in Sweden.

I know that we still have a lot to learn when it comes to Analytics Lab, but I’m excited to migrate even more reports, create new ones, and conduct in-depth analysis. Of course we’ll need some help from Morningstar along the way, but I’m confident that the process can only get smoother.

If I had to offer one piece of advice to someone who wants to use Analytics Lab, I would say this: don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to just jump in. Don’t be afraid to explore and try new things. Don’t be afraid to start small. Because you can only get better. Morningstar are there at every step of the way, from helpful webinars to customer support agents. So just see what you can do, find out where you need to improve, and go from there. The end results will be worth it.”