Wealth management – don’t forget about client reporting

Keeping your clients informed is crucial in wealth management. Beware of flooding them with information though.

It is said that “data is the new oil”. However, just like with oil, raw data has minimum or no value – it is created only when data is fully and accurately gathered, linked with other relevant data and done so in a timely manner. So what is client reporting in wealth management meaning?

Wealth management client reporting

Extensive market experience shows us that wealth management client reporting brings benefits to financial institutions, relationship managers and end-clients. As in other areas of life, in wealth management, end-customers expect a timely flow of information about their investments in order to be able to make decisions on an ongoing basis or ask for advice.

Mass reporting enables advisors to deliver relevant information to clients. If necessary, the advisor is also able to generate an ad-hoc report that usually focuses on current portfolio characteristics, such as portfolio structure and breakdown, portfolio valuation, gap between current portfolio and model, or last transactions. This further enables advisors to quickly talk to the client, discuss the current situation and sometimes upsell some investment products.

Wealth management client reporting tools simplify the daily work of advisors and allow them to spend more time building relationships and acquiring new clients. Those tools should be customizable and cater to specific client segments. Different segments mean different needs and requirements.

From small and highly customized reports to mass reporting

Comarch Wealth Management is one of top Comarch product equipped with a reporting engine that streamlines processes in every banking segment. From small and highly customized reports in private banking segments to mass reporting in retail delivered to hundreds of thousands of customers every month. Reporting benefits are noticed quickly in each of the said segments, both by clients and institutions (that refers both to conventional and Islamic financial reporting).

A principal role of the reporting engine is to collect data, check its correctness, and arrange the data in order to present it in a clear and logical manner as reports, analyses and summaries. One of the most important part of the engine is related to data quality procedures which verify data format, completeness, uniqueness, bindings or consistency (reconciliation). This is a crucial point because a single error in data can affect many report areas and make the report completely wrong.

Reports are usually generated ad-hoc or periodically with pre-defined frequency and distributed to Advisor Front-Office, Client Front-End, client portal of the financial institution or other directory. The reporting mechanism also allows for ad-hoc report generation that usually focuses on current portfolio characteristics. Standard report usually consists of the following:

• Introduction/marketing message
• Investment philosophy description and market overview
• Current portfolio structure and allocations by currencies, regions, or product types
• Detailed information about client holdings
• Portfolio evolution
• Profit and loss, performance and contribution calculations
• Portfolio risk analysis
• List of transactions
• Disclaimers, commentary, remarks

Many years of experience in automation and integration projects in banks and investment management companies, alongside with the ongoing analysis of the current market trends in that area made it possible for Comarch to identify three main challenges facing modern wealth managers. It’s client service improvement, operational efficiency and effective communication. Comarch Wealth Management solves problems arising from these challenges. Just to name a few examples – it provides custom and client-focused reporting based on reliable and up-to-date information, integrates all necessary data within one accessible source and ensures report transparency.

Islamic financial reporting

The other side of wealth management client reporting is compliance with local regulations and conventions. This comes across countries, regional covenants as well as customer connotations. An example might be difference between conventional and Islamic customer reporting, in particular Sharia-compliant specifics which have to be observed also in communication and reporting.

Digitization is increasingly forcing banks to implement wealth management client reporting (including Islamic financial reporting) tools and provide clients with access to information about the performance of their investments. In addition, taking into account the current times and the pandemic, it seems that wealth management client reporting will soon become a market standard and a solution everyone should have.

Sławomir Wójcik - Product Manager, Business Solution Architect & Daniel Madajewski - Product Marketing Manager at Comarch