Editorial

With global activity increasing, how should financial institutions reinvent their approach?

As we inch closer to the end of 2022, although global activity levels have resumed significantly, there remains a high level of regional variation in post pandemic recovery and a lagging sense of

Contributor

Gary has 25 years of industry experience across several financial institutions, providing expertise in Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) and the development of KYC, CDD and AML managed services.

Gary McClure
Head of CLM Managed Services and Technology

As we inch closer to the end of 2022, although global activity levels have resumed significantly, there remains a high level of regional variation in post pandemic recovery and a lagging sense of fragility.

With inflationary pressures and supply chain shocks at a global scale, companies continue to face growing complexity of the post pandemic trends. Parallel to this, climate change continues to seek unflinching attention and technology continues to innovate at an expeditious rate - faster than most of us can comprehend, let alone govern.

So what does all this mean for banks and other financial institutions who must deal not just with the external complexity but also organisation structures and silos of their own making?

CLM activities include checking on a person’s source of wealth and other details such as whether they are deemed to be politically exposed, whether they are impacted by sanctions and so on. While this may seem relatively straightforward, we must bear in mind is that there are several layers to this process. It’s important to recognise that changes in one part of the world will impact the other. However, at the other end of this spectrum, regulatory requirements continue to change and it’s important to acknowledge these on a global level.

If there is one clear message through it all, it has to be the need for a clear definition of what a firm sees as its core purpose and then the focus to follow through – despite the many things demanding their time and attention.

Reinventing the Financial Services value chain

Firms need to think creatively and reimagine their value chain so that they can separate out the non-differentiators from the differentiators and pay careful attention to the latter. Differentiators are things that come to mind when you ask questions such as - what would a firm want to be famous for? These are attributes that help to create the compelling propositions and attract clients.

On the other hand, non-differentiators are things that firms must do. They may get noticed when not done well - yet doing them well brings in no added advantage. According to research by McKinsey, differentiation is one of the main factors separating the 40% of banks that create value from the 60% who destroy it.

Several layers of the CLM process

As a simple example, whilst great branding and customer service differentiate a firm from its closest competitors, a well-managed internal due diligence mechanism for client lifecycle management (CLM) needs to be higher on the priority list for some organisations.

To elaborate, CLM is an industry term used for processes related to onboarding new clients and refreshing client data when required, such as at the end of a specific time frame or when there is a trigger event that creates a need for a refresh.

Equally, as innovation continues at breakneck speed, there is a need to constantly enhance - not just the way we check but also what we check.

Control frameworks and large scale remediation exercises

As an example, The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) considers crypto currencies potentially hazardous for retail investors and is planning to add more barriers to how retail investors invest in cryptocurrencies.

Future plans may include conducting customer suitability test whereby this assessment will be used to determine the ease with which retail investors will be able to access leverage or credit facilities for cryptocurrency trading.

Needless to say, what this means for crypto firms is that they will need to know more about who it is that is accessing their platforms and how the firms themselves will demonstrate that they have taken due care to ensure that all the people trading on their platforms are in fact deemed suitable.

This will most likely apply not to only new customers being onboarded but also the existing customers. So quite naturally, there will be a need to review the book of existing client too. For firms looking simply to grow their client base, this entire ask might feel like a time consuming exercise that will take a great deal of work to ensure compliance.

A lot of the banks are still facing numerous challenges around control frameworks, policies and procedures and intense regulatory scrutiny resulting in reviews of their control frameworks, their policies and large scale remediation exercises.

How can Delta Capita help?

Delta Capita has an experienced client lifecycle management (CLM) team that run CLM services which include; resource augmentation, managed services, managed teams, and technology solutions such as Karbon that can help our clients with needs such as these. For firms looking to embed this into a model for perpetual KYC, Delta Capita, with a leadership team of industry practitioners, is uniquely positioned to help.

To find out more, contact us and speak to one of our experts.