Wealthtech

How Innovation and Technology Are Leading the Way for Client-Centric Banks

Instant acknowledgements, quick processing, and personalised experiences – customers’ expectations in Asia have risen along with these developments with how financial businesses are operating and serving their clients.

For many traditional incumbent banks and financial businesses, navigating this challenging landscape and staying future-ready is no easy feat.

For Swiss wealth management group Julius Baer and global innovation partner Zuhlke, investment in innovation and technology supported by agile ways of working have led the way in offering a differentiated experience for clients.

Recently launched for the Asian markets by Julius Baer, the Digital Advisory Suite (DiAS) is a showcase of client-centricity by the bank. The award-winning solution empowers relationship managers to offer personalised investment advice for clients, bringing the bank to the forefront of digitalisation.

Zuhlke supported Julius Baer as a key partner on its transformation journey in building this bespoke solution. The result of this agile, client-focused approach? An ambitious build and roll-out of a next-generation solution in the bank’s history.

An award-winning digital wealth management solution by Julius Baer

DiAS offers customised investment solutions for clients, enabling client-facing staff to navigate complex international regulatory environments and provide compliant advice effectively.

The fully integrated solution allows for a seamless end-to-end advisory process. By automating administrative tasks, relationship managers free up time to focus on their client relationships and on providing personalised investment advice.

Jimmy Lee

“In light of changing market conditions and the evolving needs of clients in Asia, it is increasingly imperative for the financial industry to accelerate innovation and digital transformation.

Integrated digital advisory platforms such as DiAS will empower relationship managers to manage portfolios efficiently and serve our clients in the region with best-in-class advice and customised solutions.”

said Jimmy Lee, Head Asia Pacific, Julius Baer.

Going beyond traditional boundaries for faster time-to-market

The bank’s DiAS journey began in 2017 when they first realised the increasing demand to offer customised investment content effectively and seamlessly to meet increasing client needs.

Off-the-shelf software did not fulfil such expectations, as they are not set up to allow precise customisation that can support critical business processes with well-designed customer experiences.

The challenge for many traditional large banks lies in their complex IT infrastructures. There is a constant need to remain resilient for the future while modernising legacy systems.

This calls for solutions that go beyond providing working software that serves short-term functional needs, as well as cultural shifts within organisations to adopt agile and development operations (DevOps) principles and practices for faster time to market.

Anja Baer

“For innovation to happen at scale, it is fundamental to build and cultivate a strong engineering culture centered around agile principles and technical excellence.

The close collaboration among development teams with integrated user feedback loops, together with support from business stakeholders and other units have made DiAS a successful showcase of how transformation can happen in client-centric banks.”

said Anja Baer, Banking Business Solutions, Zuhlke.

With support from over 45 specialists from Zuhlke’s global pool of tech talent, Julius Baer adopted an agile delivery approach for DiAS. Built in-house at Julius Baer by engineering teams working together in a distributed approach across Europe and Asia, the strategic and visionary solution is a game changer in achieving business agility to react to fast-moving markets while complying with international regulatory requirements and complex client needs.

Nicolas de Skowronski

“At Julius Baer, we believe that it is paramount to leverage technology to innovate and constantly enhance our services. Julius Baer is one of very few international private banks to have all their major booking centres on one digital advisory platform.

To achieve such significant efficiency gains while still keeping the platform connected to our vast technology architecture, we needed a bespoke solution such as DiAS which was created from scratch by our teams across Zurich and Asia.”

said Nicolas de Skowronski, Co-Head of Investment & Wealth Management Solutions, Julius Baer.

Leveraging innovative technologies to drive business success

DiAS was awarded “Outstanding Wealth Management Technology Implementation – Front End” at the Global Private Banking Innovation Awards 2020, demonstrating the importance of using solid technologies to constantly innovate and drive excellent customer experiences in this digital era.

Designed to support international markets, DiAS simplifies end-to-end workflows for complex banking regulations and runs on automation for most of its processes, bringing administrative and operational work down to minutes. Julius Baer was able to benefit from shorter time-to-market and improved client satisfaction.

The modern solution utilises automation, AI capabilities, and machine learning algorithms to make personalised investment recommendations while respecting individual risk profiles and complex regulatory requirements.

Jonas Trindler

“Many of our clients in the banking sector are increasingly investing in future-forward technologies or partnering up with ecosystem partners to keep up in the global competition.

With DiAS, we are proud to celebrate an extraordinary milestone with Julius Baer, setting new ground-breaking standards for the bank and the overall industry as a transformative solution designed around service excellence and digital innovation.”

said Jonas Trindler, CEO Asia & Partner of Zühlke Group.

To stay competitive, digitalisation is not enough

Digital capabilities are the key to resilience and established financial institutions can learn from innovative start-ups and tech giants on transforming the way they work to stay in the race.

They must transform internally to become client-obsessed, and invest in the right digital channels, scalable technologies and continuous innovation efforts to raise the bar in service excellence.

To stay competitive, going digital is not enough. The future of banking will involve powerful insights derived from rich data, personalised experiences powered by deep technologies, and a whole organisational culture and mindset shift within financial institutions.

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