The Future Fund confirmed on Friday it had appointed United States based custodian Northern Trust.
The Chicago headquartered firm beat locally domiciled custodians State Street and NAB Custodian Services to the highly prized mandate.
When asked why it had adopted a foreign custodian, a Future Fund spokesman said it had searched for and selected the custodian that was best able to meet its needs.
"Throughout the selection process we focused on the ability of the custodian to deliver global best practice and innovative solutions with minimal risk to the Fund," said Future Fund head of operations Gordon McKellar.
"Northern Trust showed it was able to meet the full range of our requirements."
The Future Fund was created in 2006 by the Australian Government to offset the Government's unfunded superannuation liability, which is expected to grow to over $140 billion by 2020.
It currently has $51 billion in assets.
Northern Trust institutional services president Tim Theriault said that expanding the firm's reach in Australia's institutional market was part of its overall strategy to continue to grow the business in the Asia-Pacific region.
Northern Trust was founded in 1889 and has assets under custody of US$3.8 trillion ($4.6 trillion), and assets under investment management of US$756 billion ($910 billion).
