Northern Trust has said its focus on year-end accounting and financial disclosures are behind its latest local government pension scheme mandate, a sector where the US custody bank now has 12 funds.

The custodian said on Thursday it has been selected by Scottish Borders to provide global custody, accounting, performance measurement, cash management and foreign exchange services for its £550 million in pension fund assets.

“Northern Trust has created a dedicated UK Public Sector client service to ensure we are closely aligned to meet the needs of this group,” said Ian Hamilton, institutional business development for UK, Europe and Africa at Northern Trust.

The announcement with Scottish Borders marks the twelfth local government pension scheme mandate for Northern Trust. As of December 31 2016, assets under custody of the 12 National Framework Agreement mandates total $26.9 billion, according to the custodian.

“For over 20 years we have been supporting and building our local government pension scheme (LGPS) relationships through organic growth and currently work with 42% of the LGPS market,” said Hamilton.

Northern Trust is already custodian to eight out of the 11 Scottish local government pension schemes. It said it supports 35% of the top 100 UK pension schemes, ranging from £450 million to £16 billion in assets.

“The LGPS are active in the market and tender every five to seven years,” said Hamilton. “The activity depends on when different schemes decide to review the market.”

“Roughly 50% of Northern Trust assets under custody globally are from pension funds. This gives us the ability to invest significantly in people, technology and services to support our pension fund clients and this client base.”

Northern Trust announced on February 20 it is to acquire UBS Asset Management’s fund administration servicing units in Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Upon completion of the transaction, which is expected in the second half of 2017, Northern Trust will become the fund administration services provider for funds totaling approximately CHF 420 billion ($413 billion) in assets.

In July last year, UK-based insurer Rothesay Life selected Northern Trust to provide middle office service services for a portfolio of over £20 billion in assets under management.

Northern Trust was also appointed by offshore wealth manager Peregrine Guernsey earlier in the year to provide global custody and fund administration services, as reported by Global Investor in April.