Celent, the consultant and research firm, is putting banking technology – with a wealth management twist – under the microscope in two reports for the European industry.

The reports are titled European Wealth Management Technology Vendors: Evaluating Front Office Platform Vendors;European Wealth Management Technology Vendors: Evaluating Front to Back Office Vendors and European Wealth Management Technology Vendors: Evaluating Core Banking Vendors.

As Celent says, front-office components support the advisory process, from acquisition to ongoing maintenance and retention, in a single workflow. Wealth managers are making heavy investments in their front office capabilities.

The report that is called European Wealth Management Technology Vendors: Evaluating Front Office Platform Vendors, examines the leading European vendors of front office platforms. The following vendors are included: Atos, Finantix, New Access, OpenFinance, Prometeia, TechRules, and Temenos (WealthManager).

“Given the crowded European technology marketplace, it is vital to create and emphasise differentiators,” Alexander Camargo, analyst with Celent’s Securities & Investments Group,” said.

“Vendors who remain flexible enough to adjust between discretionary and non-discretionary investment services, and those who emphasize the modularity of their front office tools, will win new clients and retain existing ones,” Camargo said.

This report features a detailed profile for each wealth management platform vendor, identifying strengths and weaknesses. Also included is a vendor comparison section, which evaluates each solution’s features and functionalities and compares vendors based on various functionalities. Celent provides an ABCD Vendor View, which shows at a glance the relative position of vendors in the following categories: Advanced Technology, Breadth of Functionality, Customer Base (number of clients), and Depth of Client Services on two separate X/Y scales. The last section includes Celent’s considerations of where the market is headed.