Banks and wealth management firms are faced with a wide choice of technology options, all claiming to deliver benefits that will improve client service, cut costs or increase productivity, but the breadth of choice (and acronyms) can be confusing. So, what’s important and what’s not, and what will differentiate your service, rather than just supporting core business? This was the theme of our latest webinar.
To illustrate what to look for when sourcing technology solutions, Sebastien Buchard, Chief Sales Officer at core banking solutions provider Azqore, finds the analogy of building a house to be useful.
Although it takes more than bricks and mortar to transform a house into a home, house builders must start by making sure that the foundations, walls, roof and heating system – which form the fabric of the building – are robust, solid and secure. These elements are standard pre-requisites, they underpin every other aspect of the building, and in reality they satisfy around 90% of our functional needs. Just like a core banking system, no-one wants to spend time worrying about infrastructure, which must be simple and efficient to maintain.
The remaining 10% of a buyer’s needs – the factors that transform a house into a highly desirable home that is comfortable, stylish, and efficient – are those that really sell the house and make you the envy of your friends. Nowadays, technology innovation in the ‘smart’ home is focused on reducing the time it takes to cook a meal, make coffee, get room temperatures right, or identify items requiring attention. You spend less time worrying about maintenance, and more time on leisure.
Financial institutions need a highly functional core banking platform, incorporating everything from back office processes to credit modules and portfolio management systems. They also need flexible APIs that allow quick and easy integration of both CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and CLM (Client Lifecycle Management), to provide the 10% of capabilities that make your service stand out from the crowd.
Antony Bream, Managing Director EMEA and Americas at Wealth Dynamix, works with private banks and wealth management firms to deliver CLM solutions that help them shine, by adding the final 10%. Like your kitchen, a CLM platform is the hub of the house, where relationships evolve and grow. The less time you spend preparing a meal, the more time you have to spend with family or guests, communicating over dinner. Likewise, the less time relationship managers spend on manual administration and searching for data, the more time they have to engage with clients.
Examples of how Wealth Dynamix customers are benefiting include:
- Advisor productivity: 50% reduction in time spent preparing for client meetings
- Process efficiency: 25% faster onboarding for private clients
- Client experience: 80% reduction in time spent managing client service requests
- Digital strategy: 40% increase in staff satisfaction
- Prospect management: 30% more time spent on new business
- Data insights: 90% reduction in the average age of data
CLM is all about knitting together the full range of systems and processes that support each phase of the client lifecycle, from start to finish.
- Prospecting: the process of identifying, nurturing and converting prospects into clients, which involves collecting a broad range of data that can be leveraged throughout downstream processes.
- Onboarding: working collaboratively with clients and colleagues to complete the checks required to validate client data and ensure compliance.
- Client management: creating a 360-degree client view, being alerted to client requirements, and gaining AI-driven insights that relationship managers can quickly act upon.
- Client servicing: utilising digital tools and collaboration platforms to perform daily tasks and manage client requests, supported by process automation and workflows that reduce manual administration and save relationship manager time.
Get all of these CLM aspects working together alongside core banking and CRM, in an orchestrated, seamless and frictionless way, and your clients will become ‘emotionally connected’ to your firm (not just satisfied). And according to research, emotionally connected clients account for 3x lower churn, 6x higher AUM growth and 2x more recommendations.
To achieve this orchestration, you must choose the right supplier. Returning to our house analogy, no-one wants to have multiple architects and teams of craftsmen working in isolation, who later in a project have to find ways to work together to complete the build. Likewise, financial institutions are best served by a supplier who can provide a one-stop-shop for the full front-to-back office process, from core banking and CRM through to CLM. They should be fully accountable for performance and results, and be able to tailor a solution to meet your individual requirements based on best practice experience across many builds.
The sooner you begin converting data from multiple systems and processes into actionable insights, and presenting insights to relationship managers on a single dashboard accessed via a single sign-on, the sooner you will have a business that relationship managers are proud to work for, clients are happy to remain with, and competitors want to emulate.