Aside from onboarding, advisors are dealing with the operational cost and risk of compliance. Regulations are growing in complexity, especially around sensitive risks like anti-money laundering and identity theft. Firms must absorb increasing costs to navigate these complexities and abide by evolving rules and regulations. Rolling out a champagne and caviar trade compliance program on a bread and water budget, is the biggest obstacle, according to a respondent in the 2021 Thomson Reuters report The Cost of Compliance. With technology, advisors can more easily navigate evolving regulatory requirements to become compliant. For example, digital audit trails provide timestamps of e-signatures and can validate that the person filling out the form was also the person who signed it. Before these types of solutions, a signature was simply not auditable.

Use cases for digital solutions werent apparent when I left the investment firm, which is why I started Mako Fintech in 2018 a company dedicated to creating technological solutions for Canadas wealth and asset management industry. By learning first-hand the frustrations that came along with the job, I saw the need for wealth managers to become more proficient with technology that customizes workflow automation. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, it became evident this technology was practically essential. In what seemed like an overnight transition, many firms quickly moved operations online and those that didnt started seeing assets moving to other online-first institutions. The demand for digital solutions increased dramatically. It was around then that our phones started ringing off the hook, and the impact for us at Mako was seismic. Our implementation queue will be full for months to come and were rapidly hiring to keep up with customer demand.

Organizations across Canada were forced to adapt and be nimble when the pandemic first hit, and this is still the case almost two years later. Personally, I think hybrid and remote work arrangements will be part of society moving forward for health and safety, and to conduct business more efficiently. For firms that have recently found and integrated with a technology solution that meets their needs, those radically new ways of doing things are likely to stay in place for the long haul. Digital transformation is not a process that every firm wants to make repeatedly.

Fortunately, in wealth management, advisors dont have to choose between embracing digital or operating manually because its not an either-or situation. The industry will continue to meet clients in-person when its safe to do so while staying connected through technology. Wealth managers can have their cake and eat it too.

Raphael Bouskila is the CEO of Mako Financial Technologies, a Montreal-based technology firm that provides customized digital solutions to automate onboarding and client engagement processes for wealth managers.

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How hybrid wealth automation is helping advisors navigate COVID-19 - Wealth Professional