Securities & Investments Newsletter: June 2018

Risk in the Digital Age

I am pleased to announce a new report on how chief risk officers and chief compliance officers are grappling with the digital age titled Achieving Integrated GRC in an Interconnected Digital Age. Cubillas Ding and Neil Katkov (profiled here) interviewed CROs and risk managers to explore the challenges and opportunities they face in a digital age. Cubillas summarized a few perspectives from that report here. Forward-looking CROs are already shifting from mere compliance to how risk and control functions should operate in a rapidly changing digital environment.

Moreover, with current advancements in digital technologies and the rise of innovative fintech startups, Cubillas points out that financial institutions are faced with an array of opportunities to build next-generation risk management capabilities to accelerate the path to internal transformation and cost rationalization.

WAM Renaissance

Across the wealth and asset management technology value chain, we continue to observe significant structural trends. Financial advisor tools are going through a renaissance, as indicated by Kelley Byrnes, who interviewed over a dozen financial institutions and technology companies to provide use cases for how wealth managers are using third party solutions in conjunction with proprietary systems to deliver actionable insights. Kelley, (who we recently profiled here) also demonstrated the potential for bots across wealth management and the integration of new messaging platforms.

CRM functionality is expanding rapidly. Ashley Globerman examined the leading vendors in the CRM for wealth management market and provided detailed profiles of each vendor along with comparisons and rankings.

Will Trout recently highlighted how technology is enabling new alternative platforms, making a distribution to wealthy investors and their advisors more attractive.

Furthermore, asset managers are not immune to the technology forces shaping their operations, with the adoption of the cloud rising in importance, as Brad Bailey recently highlighted in his report on the state of the buy side front office and benefits of the cloud.

Other best practices are emerging. For more examples and inspiration, please see the winners of our model wealth and model asset manager awards here, which highlight the most effective use of technology.

Finally, on June 19, we will discuss the potential for boosting digital distribution across the wealth management landscape at our London roundtable. Please contact your account manager if you are interested.

I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

David Easthope
Senior Vice President
@deasthope