The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has issued a banking licence to Northern Trust, an organisation best known as the custodian of the assets of the Australian government's sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund.The US asset servicing and asset management company has looked after Australian and New Zealand institutional clients out of its Singapore office for a number of years. It opened a Melbourne office earlier this year.Northern Trust managing director for Australia Paul Cutts said the custody business involved a lot of deposit-taking and placement, especially overnight balances. With an ADI licence the group will be able to provide those services locally, rather than require clients to contract with an overseas group company.The licence will give Northern Trust more flexibility and capacity to provide cash management services as part of its custody offering.Cutts said the group had a lending business in the United States but would not be offering that product here. Its US business is institutional and personal but in Australia it will be sticking to the institutional market. "You won't be seeing us on the high streets," said Cutts.Northern Trust has US$3.8 trillion of assets under custody and US$650 billion of assets under management.