Back Office Insider: Paper and open architecture don't match.

(From Professional Wealth Management (PWM))

PWM: Are the private banks that practise third party fund distribution making sufficient use of technology?

HG: Clearly automation would be much easier if the funds were in-house, but in spite of clear technological advances, paper and telephone still dominate in this area. Change has been coming for years now, but seems to be moving quite slowly. As more wealth managers move to open architecture, the pressure to keep costs competitive will drive more demand for systems.

PWM: What improvements could private banks make to their systems?

HG: Many private wealth firms are finding that their legacy systems are out- of-date and that paper-based processes aren't sufficient for new market developments, such as open architecture and the use of structured products. There are a growing number of technology solutions now available to private wealth organisations to help them automate and become more competitive. But selecting the right system and restructuring your organisation can be a lengthy and complicated process.

Wealth managers are now getting electronic access to some fund supermarkets: they will need to have the right technology in place to be able to capitalise on this.

Income management is another problem area. It tends to be quite manual and, in the UK, you have the added complexity of accounting for Group 1 and ...