This article is by Jeremy Crame, chief executive of Hitec Laboratories, which develops, implements and supports enterprise content management, risk and compliance solutions for the wealth management sector.

This article is by Jeremy Crame, chief executive of Hitec Laboratories, which develops, implements and supports enterprise content management, risk and compliance solutions for the wealth management and wider financial services community. Written from the UK, the article is also relevant for readers further afield.

The volume of business-critical information that members of the wealth management community need to retain is growing at a staggering rate. Whilst much of the information is required to ensure the continued provision of high levels of customer service, more recently, the focus has shifted to the increased amount of information that is required to be retained to satisfy the requirements of compliance, audit and the regulators: A veritable alphabet soup of AML, RDR, TCF, KYC, FATCA, HNWI, and many more.

The biggest problem is that critical information – whether about customers or transactions – isn’t available from just one source. If it was, life would be so much easier. The important critical information is generally contained within a wide variety of silos, such as line-of-business applications, spread sheets, Word documents, scanned documents, printed reports, web-forms, emails, text files and more.

The overriding challenge is to securely capture, store and manage all types of business critical information - irrespective of source and format - into a single, secure, repository and provide fast search and retrieval capabilities, coupled with audit trails (who viewed what/when) and retention scheduling. Only then will wealth managers be able to satisfy the requirements of compliance, audit and the regulators.

Historically, organisations have used a combination of ‘technologies’ to address these requirements - such as document management software, network drives, databases, and even cardboard boxes buried in decommissioned nuclear bunkers. The problem is that none of these “technologies” provides a single repository to access critical information, and the speed and accuracy of response to enquiries is unacceptable in an age where both customer retention and compliance are of paramount importance. Even a combination of all these “technologies” is not able to provide a single view of a customer.

These challenges have given rise to the growing adoption of enterprise content management solutions, and this is now having a major and positive impact on how Wealth Managers manage their critical business information. An ECM solution collates all the information, structured or unstructured, irrespective of source and format, into a single secure repository, instantly making it manageable and significantly improving accessibility, retrieval, customer service and compliance. This serves to protect the integrity of the information as it may not be altered or changed, and dramatically improves efficiency and reduces the overall cost of managing critical information across the business.

ECM solutions automate a range of business and compliance challenges, ranging from client on-boarding and AML/KYC; through corporate actions to electronic archiving of reports and e-delivery of statements, valuations and tax packs.

Whilst ECM solutions invariably contain a document scanning component, they are much more than a solution to just “solve the paper problem” that so many businesses still suffer from. Yes, one can capture, scan and index documents using a range of recognition technologies such as optical character recognition and barcodes, and this will undoubtedly assist businesses, particularly in the area of disaster recovery (it’s somewhat difficult to back-up paper files!). But of equal importance, ECM solutions are also able to automatically capture and index customer communications generated through Word documents and email messages for example; and capture computer generated reports and Excel spread sheets that are likely to contain critical transactional information. Workflow functionality provides the opportunity to not only automate on-boarding and payment processes for example, but also to remove the potential for error; and records management capability ensures that information can be automatically deleted at the time determined by the business and/or in accordance with regulatory/statutory requirements (Data Protection Act).

ECM solutions support a firm’s compliance programme – from protecting the integrity of the information, which is fundamental; protecting its confidentiality by the use of client specific secure access control; through to a thorough and highly configurable audit and reporting functionality, detailing “who”, “what”, “when”, “where” and “how”. And if that wasn’t enough, in addition to being able to report on what information is securely archived, a built for purpose ECM solution can even report on what information should be securely archived, and isn’t!

There are a huge number of substantial benefits to be gained by wealth managers implementing an ECM solution. They range from instant employee productivity gains, improved customer service and reduced costs, to enhanced disaster recovery/business continuity programmes and assistance with compliance requirements.

However, once a firm decides to adopt an ECM strategy, that is just step one. It is vital to select a vendor with a track record and in-depth domain expertise of the industry – a vendor that understands the wealth management business and issues – and not just a vendor that understands how to capture and store “stuff”. And the vendor should be able to offer pro-active advice based on experience gained with a wide range of other members of the wealth management industry.