Wealth Tech Awards 2022: Americas winners
Best private bank for use of technology, North America;
Best private bank for digitally empowering RMs, North America;
Best digital innovator of the year, North America
Bank of America
Bank of America has invested in many multi-year initiatives to implement its digital transformation and support its strategic priorities, including client acquisition and growth, enhancing advisers’ productivity and improving client experience. It spends $11bn annually on technology, including $3.6bn on innovation.
Last year, the US institution launched the Collaborative Onboarding Experience (COBE), which is a fully digital end-to-end account opening and onboarding experience. The platform is also used for account maintenance, with new features being added continually, such as real-time collaboration capability between advisers and clients. Spanning both investment and banking accounts, it reduces the advised onboarding experience from days to hours.
“The response from advisers and clients has been outstanding and we anticipate by year end more than 50 per cent of eligible accounts will be open through COBE,” says Kirstin Hill, chief operation officer at Merrill, part of Bank of America.
The Personal Wealth Analysis tool has significantly transformed wealth planning, by connecting client goals to investment solutions and helping create broader conversations between advisers and clients. Since launch in 2020, $27bn in new assets have been generated as result.
More than 80 per cent of clients are digitally active across Bank of America’s wealth management businesses, comprising Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank. Digitally engaged households have 36 per cent lower attrition and hold 45 per cent more assets with the firm than non-digitally active clients, according to the bank’s data.
Advisers have been empowered through digital capabilities, including a client engagement workstation, which leverages artificial intelligence (AI). The AI-based content sharing platform Socialize now has more than 10,000 advisers active on it.
In 2021, Merrill launched a mobile app providing advisers with a secure, consolidated view of all the information and tools needed to service clients on the go.
Real-time proactive client insights, based on an integrated view of client data across investing, banking and lending relationships, suggest conversation topics or solutions based on each client’s holistic profile, also leveraging machine-learning.
Data and predictive analytics can help private bankers provide “a much deeper customised and personalised client experience across channels”, believes Charles Liu, private bank digital strategy executive, Bank of America
“Data plays a significant role in wealth management and in the bank’s transformation to a more high-tech, high-touch private bank,” he adds. ET
Best private bank for digital wealth planning, North America
BNY Mellon Wealth Management
The global pandemic, rising interest rates to fight inflation and the war in Ukraine have all had huge effects on values of portfolios and, if anything, highlighted the importance of wealth planning even more.
“The biggest challenge in times of severe disruption and uncertainty is sticking to a well thought out and constructed investment and spending plan, one created in less volatile times,” explains Ben McGloin, head of advice, planning and fiduciary services group, BNY Mellon Wealth Management.
While the role of wealth advisers is crucial to interpret data, manage the emotional aspects of investing, and sift through information to help clients reach their goals, digital tools and techniques such as machine learning certainly improve the client experience.
“Technology provides clients and advisers visibility, transparency and control of their portfolios, and enables advisers to customise solutions to a greater degree, making the client-adviser partnership more efficient and collaborative than ever before,” says Mr McGloin.
Digital tools like AdvicePath, developed by the US bank, allows advisers to perform financial projections for their clients by adjusting portfolio allocations and spending habits, helping provide a long-term view to wealth planning.
The bank’s latest tool, Active Wealth Pulse, can aggregate underlying holdings, including illiquid assets such as real estate and private equity, to provide real-time assessments of each client’s overall asset allocation.
Through “the intuitive, customisable and collaborative online portal”, the bank has addressed many of the documentation and reporting challenges that have historically been an impediment for embracing alternative investments, which has resulted in increased adoption.
What differentiates the bank’s wealth planning approach is the simplicity of assessing outcomes. “We gather millions of data points, incorporate our capital market assumptions, spending goals, risk tolerance, mortality tables and philanthropic intent, and then narrow our client’s focus to just two factors: the odds they outlive their assets and the odds they meet their wealth transfer goals,” explains Mr McGoin. “The client selects a primary factor from these two and we monitor to ensure they remain within their desired range.” ET
Best private bank for digital portfolio management, Latin America
Banco do Brasil Private
Banco do Brasil Private (BB Private) is a well-established player in Brazil’s private banking market. It is also among the most innovative, particularly when it comes to the development of digital solutions for its clients.
BB Private’s Investment Portfolio Management application is a case in point, as it enables the analysis of a portfolio’s total performance in relation to key market indices. It can also be used by private bankers to evaluate the asset allocation of a particular customer’s portfolio.
In 2021, BB Private implemented a number of changes to improve its portfolio management and associated technologies. This included steps to ameliorate its digital investment report, such as remodelling the layout and making these reports more transparent and easier for customers to view, among other changes. Meanwhile, in order to meet client demand for variable income investment offerings, BB Private created the BB Trade System which generates options for buying and selling assets that are uniquely tailored to the needs of each client. This solution is provided through the BB mobile application, as well as internet banking.
BB Private has also boosted its after-sales service to customers, especially in relation to fixed income private securities. By keeping abreast of market rates, asset concentration, sectors and companies’ credit risk in custody, the private banking team can make recommendations in terms of asset allocation to clients. As a result, BB Private has enhanced the ways in which it manages clients’ assets through pre- and post-sale advice, risk mitigation and portfolio diversification. JK
Best private bank for digital marketing and communication, Latin America
Bradesco Private Bank
Bradesco Private Bank says its client-centric growth strategy helped to boost its assets under management, as well as its client base in 2021. The strength of this approach to is reflected in the many initiatives that Bradesco is carrying out in digital marketing and communications.
In 2021, more than 200 communications were issued to clients, covering everything from recommendations for local and international investment strategies, to the domestic and international economic operating environment, to portfolio recommendations tailored to individual customer’s profiles.
Bradesco Private Bank’s headline annual event, the Family Forum, is designed to increase ties with clients’ heirs and to discuss key trends and ideas through lectures given by experts. In 2021 this event was 100 per cent virtual.
Beyond this event, Bradesco Private Bank has established a strategic initiative known as ‘Next Generation’ which aims to build a connection with younger generations in order to better understand their needs. In doing so, innovative solutions can then be developed that match their requirements.
A core pillar of this initiative centres on educational pathways that are developed to provide greater clarity on different life stages from a financial perspective and includes themes such as family, society, the individual and business.
Meanwhile, Bradesco Private Bank has also created a formal team that is dedicated to listening to client needs and addressing new initiatives as required. JK
Best private bank for use of technology, Latin America;
Best private bank for digital customer service, Latin America
BTG Pactual
Advancements in technology, combined with a “unique” digital culture, have significantly contributed to BTG Pactual’s growth. The Brazilian bank has continued to invest in its customer relationship management and business intelligence platforms, aiming at consolidating and analysing data, to support sales processes and reach “a higher level of intelligence, accuracy and focus on product offerings”.
“Today, we can provide our bankers with more precise information on which clients they should contact for certain investment opportunities, considering customers’ investment profiles, our asset allocation recommendations and client propensity to acquire a product,” says BTG Pactual’s head of wealth management Rogerio Pessoa.
More than 50 per cent of clients have been onboarded online over the past two years. Today, both resident and non-resident investors are able to sign documents, make investments and check their portfolio performance online, through the client portal and app.
A newly released international portal gives offshore accounts access to consolidated views of their portfolios through wealth management platform Addepar.
“Our goal is to offer our clients digital integrated investment platforms, along with relevant analytical information and cutting-edge technology to support their decisions, turning the investment environment into an easy and user-friendly experience,” says Mr Pessoa.
A leadership and tech school, Inteli - Technology and Leadership institute, was founded by BTG senior partners in anticipation of growing war for talent in the tech space. “We strongly believe that investments in education and the BTG unique culture are a powerful and successful combination.”
Through a project called ‘BTG Faz Tech’, employees can showcase ideas, discuss them with the IT leadership team and present them at universities. ET
Best private bank for big data analytics and AI, North America
Northern Trust
Wholesale, digital, cultural transformation is very much the living mantra at most private banks, particularly the US players and Northern Trust is no exception, waxing lyrical about its ‘Digital Metamorphosis’ programme and its ‘one Northern Trust’ experience common to all client types and services.
The difference with the Chicago-based wealth manager, however, is that much of this transformation is based on an aptitude for curating data.
“We take different data points about a client – such as behavioural aspects, life events, sources of wealth – and create a persona that allows for greater insight beyond anecdotal evidence about an individual,” says Steve Fradkin, president of Northern Trust Wealth Management, warming to his theme.
“From that persona, we provide advice to clients that is targeted to their specific circumstance and helps them better understand different opportunities and how other clients like them approach different challenges. We are harnessing technology, in addition to the intellectual capital of our advisers, to scale our advisory experience and expertise and to ensure that, no matter where a particular client is served, they receive our best-in-class advice.”
The truth is that Northern Trust was already involved in big data collection and analysis nearly a decade before much of the competition and commentators fear that first movers in the digital revolution may eventually fall behind the latecomers, who have momentum in their favour and the advantage of being able to witness the competition’s mistakes as well as their achievements.
But Mr Fradkin points to the continued expansion of the Northern Trust Institute, a research centre empowering delivery of persona-based advice, shaped by thousands of client interactions across the firm. This institute works as an “advice engine”, providing thought leadership and resources for each adviser, that can be tailored to best advise client-s.
“This approach, including outcomes from clients and feedback from advisers, feeds into a proprietary algorithm that is continually fine-tuned,” says Mr Fradkin. “As more data points are added to the machine-learning programmes, the advice becomes more targeted and precise. We believe the integration of talented advisers, coupled with world class data and experiences, provides the best outcomes for Northern Trust clients.” YB
Best private bank for digital marketing and communication, North America
RBC Wealth Management
The launch last year of its redesigned corporate website is set to significantly enhance digital marketing and communication capabilities at RBC Wealth Management.
Its “new digital front door” allows the Canadian bank to present “a consistent and premium brand experience” by bringing together RBC Wealth Management businesses in Canada, the US, the British Isles and Asia. Its content is customised for each of the bank’s businesses to reflect each region’s unique needs and goals.
“The website allows us to welcome, engage and connect with clients and prospects in a meaningful way,” says Jennifer Publicover, senior vice president, products and strategy, RBC Wealth Management. It guides visitors through their journey based on their own needs, allowing them to choose what is relevant for them today and helping them envision where they want to go in the future.
The new website is a “milestone” for the bank and is built on “an advanced, industry-leading platform” that will provide the institution with improved data and insights, enhanced integration opportunities, allowing it to scale-up and connect to other technologies and platforms in the future, such as its CRM systems, adds Ms Publicover. “It’s a foundation built for the future that will enable us to drive meaningful, powerful and timely client experiences.” ET
