Innovations helping wealth management firms to improve risk management

The realm of wealth management often evokes images of opulence and sophistication, with suave Relationship Managers guiding clients through lucrative investments and billion-dollar deals. However, behind the scenes, this industry is a combination of trust, fiduciary responsibilities, hard work, number crunching, and staying one step ahead of competitors. Wealth management encompasses various businesses such as Distribution, Broking, Asset Management, Estate Planning, and Lending, all working together to serve High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNIs) and Ultra HNIs. With specific business and technological requirements, these firms must cater to clients' demands for cutting-edge technology, personalized interactions, and customized investment portfolios. To meet these expectations, wealth management firms require robust systems that provide real-time data, advanced analytics, flexibility, and intuitive risk assessments.

Challenges Faced by Wealth Managers

Wealth managers face several challenges in delivering the desired outcomes. Multi-service firms, offering diverse services like distribution, advisory, portfolio management, and estate planning, often rely on multiple order management and execution systems. As a result, customer and transaction data get trapped within siloed systems, each with its own data model and database. Additionally, the complexity deepens with the involvement of multiple parties throughout the order and transaction lifecycle, including fund managers, brokers, dealers, exchanges, and more. Managing data from both internal and external sources becomes critical, with the need for market alerts, valuation feeds, securities master data, and more. Combining data from these disparate sources to generate impactful reports, analyze customer cohorts, and identify risks becomes complex and time-consuming without the support of technology.

Enabling Decoupled Multi-Layer Architecture

To address these challenges, wealth management firms must adopt a decoupled multi-layer architecture. Each layer, including customer engagement, front office, order management, and data infrastructure, should operate independently with its own applications, logic, and data. However, an enterprise data platform plays a crucial role in creating a layer of interconnected data that is always available, reliable, of high quality, and governed effectively. This data platform can be built using cloud services that offer storage, processors, load balancers, clusters, and data migration capabilities. By transforming the complex landscape into a well-structured system, wealth managers can gain insights into portfolio performance, relationship manager effectiveness, risk assessment, and explore generative AI models for new patterns and possibilities.

Leveraging Technology for Efficiency

Compliance with regulatory requirements is a crucial aspect of wealth management. These firms must comply with laws aimed at protecting both the client and the wealth manager, which may appear contradictory. However, technology serves as a key enabler in efficiently meeting regulatory obligations. Reputation risk is tightly linked to regulatory compliance, driving the need for systems and processes that can scale and adapt to evolving regulations. Advanced technologies, such as automated AML compliance solutions like "Worldcheck," enable efficient decision-making and enhance due diligence for clients with diverse sources of income and international mobility. Furthermore, customized order management systems are essential when managing clients like Pension Funds and Sovereign Wealth Funds, who have specific investment restrictions. With technology, wealth management firms can stay in sync with regulatory changes while meeting compliance requirements effectively.

Safeguarding Confidentiality

Wealth management firms understand the importance of data protection and maintaining client confidentiality. Multiple layers of protection, including firewalls, DMZ, data leak protection software, and device hardening, are integrated into their systems to prevent unauthorized access and data leakage. Automated controls on emails and mobile devices strike a balance between agility and data security. Data loss prevention and availability protection, mitigating threats like DDoS attacks, are implemented at every point of contact. Proactive threat hunting, monitoring, and risk quantification help identify vulnerabilities and measure the likelihood of exposure to risk events. By diligently safeguarding every layer and endpoint, wealth management firms ensure the security of their assets, maintain client trust, and protect against potential cyber threats.

Minimizing Downtime
Uninterrupted service delivery is crucial for wealth management firms to maintain their reputation and client satisfaction. Business processes are designed to minimize downtime and ensure continuous access to data, leveraging cloud-based applications and recovery sites located in different seismic zones. By implementing robust business continuity and disaster recovery measures, wealth management firms can provide reliable and uninterrupted services to their clients, even during challenging times.

Service: The Ultimate Differentiator

In the competitive landscape of wealth management, service quality becomes the ultimate differentiator. By integrating customer relationship management (CRM) solutions like Salesforce, wealth managers can consolidate various layers, such as order management, execution, and data management, into a unified engagement layer. This empowers relationship managers with a comprehensive 360-degree view of the client, allowing them to provide personalized insights and proactive decision support. Exceptional service, coupled with performance, creates client delight and strengthens the firm's position in the market.

Innovating Risk Management in Wealth Management

Wealth management firms operate in a complex and demanding environment, catering to the needs of high-net-worth individuals. Embracing innovations and technology is essential to navigate the challenges and risks associated with the industry. Through decoupled multi-layer architecture, efficient regulatory compliance, robust data protection and cybersecurity measures, business continuity and disaster recovery planning, and exceptional service delivery, wealth management firms can enhance their risk management capabilities. These innovations empower wealth managers to meet client expectations, uncover new opportunities, and maintain their reputation as trusted advisors in the ever-evolving world of wealth management to help clients preserve and grow their wealth.

The authors are Santoshi Kittur, CTO, 360 ONE, and Raghuvir Mukherji, Head-Risk Management, 360 ONE Wealth

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