This session kicked off with a run-through of Kidbrooke’s analytics platform, and how it now offers sustainability data pipelines. Indeed, this is all the more relevant in a market where investors now expect sustainable investment offerings to be a component of any and all investment portfolios as standard. Hence, the onus is on solution providers to deliver the toolkit for wealth management firms to make sustainable investment recommendations and decisions for their clients, engage these same clients, and exceed their expectations.  

But sustainability data is far from straightforward, with sustainability data sources, aggregation needs, data quality issues, and firms cherry-picking data inputs all potentially impacting the end result.

“There is increased complexity in investment data, and firms are facing a deluge of different data sources and volumes to bring into one single view. Wealth managers also need ‘completeness’; you may not be able to get all the data you need from one source, so then you need to look into sourcing data from third parties – but keep in mind at the same time that any third-party sourced data needs to be of high quality. The requirement of a successful vendor operating in this space is to efficiently combine disparate data sets, making them into a single, scalable model,” Davéus says.

The importance of personalisation
Scale is not the only issue. In line with overall client expectations, the importance of providing personalised investment projections was discussed. Here, Davéus felt that using analytics from the bottom up for personalised projections and top-down for client engagement was a good mix. He also noted the importance of consistent data, applying robust data aggregation techniques, and using algorithms at scale.

“If the data and analytics are not in place, then firms will have difficulty communicating key information about these products and funds to their own advisers. If that is the case, the advisers will, in turn, struggle in front of the client because they either don’t have access to key information or don’t fully understand it,” says Davéus.

Thus, the trick is to be able to leverage data analytics to translate findings into something that the adviser understands and can explain to the end investor, to drive interest and engagement.

“Explaining in a clear and simple way to the end investor how your sustainability-related investment processes work to bring them value is important; it’s what drives engagement,” he says.

Implementation – slow and steady approach
The perennial issue of legacy systems being ill-equipped to deal with today’s requirements was also a topic of conversation. Here, Davéus felt that transient data integration, avoiding customer data storage, and having an aggregation layer would combine to improve things.

He also believed that rather than taking a big bang approach when it comes to replacing legacy systems, a wiser pathway would be to focus innovation on one business area first for proof of concept before extending out to other areas in an iterative approach.

“It is possible to start with something small, get it right, and grow from there. We think it is better to start with one issue, one customer segment and learn about that, gather feedback and use the learnings to grow organically,” he says.

“It is the same process with internal users – give the advisers something that they are missing – solve a problem for them, and they will engage, and from there, you can build up and out,” he concludes.

About the Swiss WealthTech Live 2024
Our Swiss WealthTech Live 2024 event took place in Zürich in February and hosted some 160 market participants from private banks, cantonal banks, external asset managers, family offices, technology vendors, consultants, and more to express their views, experiences, and visions for the future. We celebrated a full day of keynote presentations and panel discussions, with plenty of networking opportunities.

During the event, we also released our Swiss WealthTech Landscape Report 2024. This issue of the report includes 24 thought-provoking articles, 10 Solution Showcases, and 539 entries in our Solution Provider Directory.

Access the full report here.