By Anjana Jayawardena
2021 in Retrospect
Last year we took our first steps toward a production-ready platform with the implementation of a series of core features. Some of the highlights include:
Developing a multi-tenant cloud-native infrastructure to bring down implementation and operational costs for our clients
- By developing the platform on the latest AWS infrastructure, we eliminated the need for wealth management firms to purchase, manage and maintain their own infrastructure. This means saving millions of dollars in costs and months of non-value-adding effort with running a platform on-premise. It reduces implementation timelines and makes infrastructure upgrades fast and easy. In addition, we host the system in the AWS region applicable to the business’ jurisdiction of operation. This ensures compliance with the relevant regulatory framework and data residency requirements.
- To make digital product and feature development fast- our connectivity is managed via REST and WebSocket APIs. This keeps integrations simple, fast and secure. And every single WealthOS feature is supported through fully orchestrated APIs
We manage business processes and third-party connections on behalf of our clients to optimise operational tasks and cut down business processes.
- With connectivity to Onfido, investor onboarding and validations are now seamless. Verification checks are automated and completed within a few minutes.
- Connectivity to Stripe enables seamless debit card processing to take investment funds from investors.
- A fully functional reconciliation module enables a client to reconcile reference and transactional data between the WealthOS platform and multiple external parties such as external custodians, banks etc.
Products and features for customers of our clients
- Our first financial product series GIA (General Investment Account), comes with the option for investors to maintain as many individual or joint pots as needed. They can now track their investments towards different goals with ease.
- Our clients can define portfolio templates within minutes, which can then be attached to investor pots based on their risk appetite.
- Our transaction engine kicked off with features such as lump-sum payments, which comes with the flexibility to define how money should be invested into different assets with a single instruction. We support buy and sell transactions with advanced features that enable investments to be switched individually or in bulk with a single instruction.
- Our fee deduction capability makes revenue collection easy - with a (you guessed it) simple instruction, management and service fees can be charged from investor accounts.
This year, we will build and strengthen the system core features and integrate with several marketplace services.
2021 in Retrospect
We will continue to improve and enhance our existing product feature-set.
- One of our main objectives is to make standard financial tax wrapper products available out of the box. Stocks and Shares ISA (both adult and junior versions) and UK Pension accumulation and drawdown options are key financial products in the works this year. This feature set will enable end-to-end compliant administration of these products.
- We will enhance our transactions module to optimise order execution. Order aggregation features will combine multiple investor orders providing cost-efficient trade executions. Risk control features such as tolerance margins for buy and sell transactions will ensure various order types, such as unit and value based orders, can be executed within the available security and cash holdings eliminating holdings from being overdrawn.
We are managing more business processes and third-party connections for clients to bring us closer to providing a fully integrated out of the box platform. Wealth managers can focus on a winning proposition and great CX rather than juggling multiple integrations during implementations or upgrades.
- We will expand the Payments Module to support contributions and withdrawals on a schedule with automated investment instructions - all to be set up and changed on demand using configurations.
- The Portfolio Management Module will have a rebalance feature to monitor portfolio deviations and report which investor holdings need to be adjusted. A portfolio manager can then decide to adjust investor holdings back to the target portfolio ratios by executing a series of buy and sell instructions - all of which will be carried out automatically with a single instruction!
- Our Fee Computation module will compute management and service fees based on flat or tiered rates from investor accounts on a defined schedule. The revenue collection process will be executed automatically and in a timely manner.
- We are also excited to be working on several integrations with key marketplace services such as payment gateways, fund data providers and ISA transfer services.
All our features introduced will be fully configurable, giving control to our clients to set up features that support their value proposition with minimum time and effort.
In addition to these highlights, there will be more features and additions to our no-code integrations marketplace to support the end-to-end automation of the features we are developing, e.g.:
- Direct debit gateways
- Banking integrations
- Order routing services
- And reporting integrations for FCA and HMRC.
This year, our other major push is to progress a dedicated R&D roadmap to apply technologies like AI and Blockchain to particular problems in our sector. As an organisation using cutting edge technologies, we are only too aware of the pace of change in the technology landscape.
Staying true to our vision of offering a fully-fledged integrated and frictionless wealth management solution to our clients, we believe these features will help expand their business, enter new markets and gain investors. Whether you have a fully-fledged digital roadmap or still sketching your idea down on a napkin- from a brand new digital wealth proposition to digitalising an analogue proposition, we can help!