First Niagara targets relationship management to support new wealth group. Lockport, N.Y.-based First Niagara Bank has selected Financial Profiles' Profiles+ Professional relationship-management technology for use by its fledgling wealth-management group.

"Using Financial Profiles' planning and advice software will significantly enhance our ability to solve each of our client's unique financial needs quickly and effectively," says Annette Kajtoch , head of program management for First Niagara, a community bank with 123 branches in and around Buffalo, N.Y.

A little help

Profiles+ Professional is meant to help advisors, trust officers and other bank representatives the handle a broad cross section of customers. The presentation and analysis format support a collaborative approach to customer service. The Asset Allocation module of the technology suite is intended to help wealth managers classify customer assets.

Financial Profiles sales v.p. William Landes says that banks have a leg up on other wealth-management channels in their "to identify other opportunities to [serve] their customers, and technology providers like us need to help them do so productively and successfully."

In September 2005 First Niagara put former Bank of New York private-banking head Lee Wortham in charge of trust and brokerage units with a mandate to meld them into a single wealth-management unit. -FWR

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