Thought leadership

PBI interviewed Alessandro Tortelli, Solution Practice Manager at Appway, on the wealth management industry, how it’s changed, how it will continue to change in the future, and what factors are influencing this change.

Information technology is definitely a major disruptor for wealth management firms, but I see digitalization as part of a wider phenomenon: the dynamic disaggregation of the industry.

We can observe this disaggregation on many fronts. Businesswise, banks are looking for increasing specialization to position themselves more competitively. Governmental regulation adds to this. As progressively complex fiscal regimes coexist in different jurisdictions, banks are turning to external service providers to reduce their compliance burden.

At the same time, data is becoming more distributed across the value chain. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has triggered a debate about customer data ownership. Regardless of the precise legal implications, it’s become clear that banks no longer own all the data they use.

Disaggregation means that it no longer makes sense for banks to provide all services from A to Z by themselves. Instead, they need to view themselves as enabling customers to meet their financial goals. To do so, they must collaborate with their partners to increase value throughout the customer journey.

The new generation of investors certainly comes with a new technology mindset. Nevertheless, investors are mainly concerned about the performance of their assets. What makes them different from previous generations, though, is the degree of involvement and personalization that they ask from their client advisor, across all channels. Digitally-savvy investors, like consumers, want to play an active role in decisions concerning their assets.

Yes, through both personal and digital channels. This will deepen their customer insight while offering the investor a broader channel choice.

Greater customer insight enables the bank to get much closer to its customers, meet objectives like those set out in the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFiD II), and achieve service excellence. The new levels of engagement across channels generate large amounts of data that enhance customer insight. This allows banks to serve customers through personalized product offerings and to recognize behavioral patterns across different segments using advanced analytics. 

By asking themselves, which interactions are most important for my customers? These are the “moments of truth” they need to prepare for.

One common moment of truth is the first meeting with a prospective client. The advisor should have gathered enough data about them and show a holistic understanding of their profile and needs.

Another example is the activation of the investment portfolio. The advisor needs to anticipate the right moment and be ready to seamlessly execute the customer’s demands.  

Lastly, every time the advisor gets in touch with a customer represents a “moment of truth,” as it’s an opportunity to renew and deepen the relationship.

Appway orchestrates all internal and customer interactions across different channels and all along the customer journey. To do so, we integrate with all relevant IT systems and applications, including external services.

Through this integration layer, we capture and process customer data systematically and continuously, in line with the bank’s service strategy. We evaluate this data in real time, thereby supporting all process stakeholders, including client advisors, compliance, operations, and the customer.

Wealth managers stay abreast of the client’s changing needs and the latest compliance status. Their effectiveness in managing dozens or even hundreds of high net worth individuals is markedly improved.

Through our open architecture, we allow banks to tap into the growing ecosystem of specialized RegTech and FinTech service providers. And we collect the relevant data all along the way.

Compliance is an integral part of any Appway solution. A set of business rules defined by the customer guide all data gathering and analysis; these rules can be expanded, applied globally, and refined with the degree of granularity required in a local context.

But banks shouldn’t profile their customers only to make the regulators happy. One Google manager may have put it best after he requested KYC customer data from a private banker and the astonished banker said he couldn’t give him access to this information: “That’s a pity. That data is worth gold, and you’re only digging for copper.”

Want to learn more about how Appway can support you? Find helpful resources and more on Appway’s Onboarding for Wealth landing page.

Appway
+41 43 204 06 08 
Fax: +41 43 204 06 09
emea@appway.com

www.appway.com