As financial services organizations focus more of their attention on wealth management and high net worth customers, the issue of providing clients with a total view of their financial position is becoming more critical. Both retail and institutional investment advisors are being asked by their clients for more detailed, on-demand reporting of financial information. Likewise, investment advisors would like to be more proactive in communication.
As sophisticated as the financial services marketplace has become, the issue of client reporting continues to be largely a manual process for most financial institutions. As described by one large asset management firm, the process to produce client reports for both individual and institutional investors is time consuming, lacks professionalism, and is prone to mistakes. Not comforting words for an organization faced with meeting constantly changing regulations and increasing client demands. Furthermore, the risks associated with a manual client reporting process took on new meaning with the introduction of Sarbanes-Oxley, which requires "identification and documentation of internal controls over financial reporting," most of which do not exist for client reporting.
The benefit: A complete customer view. The term "client reporting" refers to much more than a current statement of balances and recent transactions, which most banks and investment firms have provided via the Web for several years. Rather, client reporting includes the ability to analyze the client's current position, review the top-performing and bottom-performing investments, prepare for any investments that may be maturing in the near future such as bonds and CDs, and provide other value-added investment services. In addition, the investment advisor often includes some personal note or information about him/herself to reinforce the personal relationship with the client. To add complexity, both the client and investment advisor are requesting the flexibility to obtain these custom reports via email in PDF format, or in a personal PowerPoint presentation.
There is a need for solutions that can help financial services organizations link all of a customer's information together to produce dynamic personalized reports that meet the requirements of both clients and investment advisors. When seeking an effective solution it is imperative to look for the following: A browser-based front end that allows the client or investment advisor to interactively choose the content modules they want to appear in the report; the flexibility to produce all types of charts, graphs, and images; the ability to accept information from multiple internal systems, data warehouses, ECM systems, and other data sources without requiring the institution to normalize the data. Also crucial are a collaborative environment that allows marketing and legal groups to control content to meet the institution's requirement; the ability to produce output that is personalized in a PowerPoint slide show for the investment advisor or a PDF booklet for the client; a comprehensive platform for producing all types of document applications so that client reporting can be integrated with all the other communications the institution sends its clients.
Brent Burns is group vp of financial services for Exstream Software.
