There’s a process in wealth management that strongly depends on appealing user experience and solid legal basis: the onboarding process. A process also exists that is an ideal candidate for rationalization and digitalization, in order to get streamlined, gain effectiveness and retain the client.

The reason is, the onboarding process that digitalization found in banks and institutions came right from the Seventies or the Eighties, without many changes: it was centered on static, invariant, preprinted forms, to be wholly filled no matter who the client was or needed. Repetition of the same information across multiple form was the norm, for instance, and multiple signatures were needed, in a time-consuming and, frankly, boring process.

SIMPLIFY AND SPEED UP ONBOARDING

No wonder that, in the digital age, a badly designed and executed onboarding process can make > 70% of prospects abandon the quest halfway, and choose competition.

In times of accelerating digitalization, on a side, and a growing bulk of regulation on the other side (MiFID II, PSD2), a financial institution is better going to think about keeping the pace of the competition on innovation, and ensure the best compliance of the onboarding process, making the client satisfied.

PERSONALIZATION

How does onboarding change in this years? Simplify the data collection while strictly observing the regulations, to ask the client nothing more than the necessary while staying compliant for sure. Nobody want to incur in additional compliance-related costs after the data collection phase and having successfully completed onboarding.

This is obtained by working either on the personalization of the process and a paradigm change about forms, that are no longer static and encompassing all and every detail of the client; forms become dynamic instead, and the process is able to collect information once for all the following needs.

KNOW YOUR CLIENT

A requirement for a good onboarding process today is, by consequence, to know the target well enough to only collect information relevant for the kind of contract at stake. This simplification is reached by rationalizing the process; forms and documentation must, literally, come out almost from scratch according to the client and his needs. Nothing is to be collected that is not functional and strictly required.

Digitalization is what makes this possible and desirable, since good software can enforce the perfect compliance, even in excess of the minimum; many institutions, banks above all, tend towards an excess of compliance checks to stay away from unpleasant bureaucratic surprises. A digital onboarding can be configured to address the client’s needs and the institution’s too, in a tailor-made way.

CRITICAL, MASS

Research shows that onboarding is the critical moment in winning a client. To build a successful and pleasant relationship in that very moment is critical, because it means a conversion—or a failure. Digital platforms allow to reach such a goal and at the same time ensure regulatory compliance. Personalization and compliance. And, on big numbers; these dynamics are at the heart of the best relationship platforms. They’re poised to become mandatory for every sane wealth management firm very soon this is the key to ultimately boost customer engagement.