This year’s conference was jam-packed full of content. Billed as the event for following innovation in wealth management, this year’s incarnation did not fail to deliver on that. NexJ was among twenty 8-minute “Disrupt Demos” presented this year. It was a great way to get a lightning tour of the industry’s latest and greatest.

The wealth management customer base is changing – both in behavior and age. Baby Boomers are shifting from growth to protection strategies or passing their wealth on to younger generations.

Will they run the markets and become our new overlords? Pushing science fiction aside, I think there are some key realistic expectations we can all start to consider as achievable with today’s technology.

Let’s talk about your desk for a minute. Yes, that’s right. Your desk. That indispensable piece of furniture that provides a home to your computer, cup of coffee, print outs, pens, tchotchkes, and what have you.

So when a system stops receiving support or development, it affects the health of the entire company. It can become expensive to maintain, difficult to upgrade, or so obsolete it risks pulling the company behind the competition. When people can't or aren't using the system, or when the system isn't able to provide the functionality that's needed, the organization must replace it.

Digital brands are important. In the digital age, customers do research on their financial decisions before they even contact the bank. They Google, talk to friends and colleagues on social networks, and look at the websites for both the institutions and the advisors themselves. When it comes to financial decisions, they are looking for someone they can trust and who will be a partner, not just a vendor. Your institution and your bankers themselves must communicate a unique perspective that makes them stand out from the crowd before the client reaches out directly.

This year, CGI’s conference was in beautiful Naples, Florida. The conference, focused on CGI’s North American Wealth Management and Global Banking solutions, brings together analysts, thought leaders, and also all of CGI’s wealth and banking customers.

In this blog series, we’ll explore the concepts that make up the Semantic Data Lake. We’ll begin with an introduction to Hadoop – what is it and why was it developed? Techniques traditionally applied when mastering complicated organizational reference data such as customers often require centralization to enforce standardization. 

You’ve seen the demo and read the brochure. You’ve read a dozen RFP responses, and expertly managed conflicting requirements and competing stakeholder expectations. You’ve short-listed the vendors, and authored a business case that you can be proud of. 

It’s still a little hard to get used to. For a number of years this would be the week I would make my way to the Big Apple, the financial services mecca of North America, to attend #CRMEvolution. The event used to take place in a hotel right in Times Square. There was always a flurry of activity all around.

At NexJ, we take great pride in being a responsive vendor. This is a big part of our value proposition – our desire to be a strategic partner who contributes to our clients’ success. If you’re making a software purchase, I strongly recommend you factor vendor responsiveness into the decision making process. It’s an invaluable intangible. So what exactly do I mean by ‘responsive vendor’?

In this, the second part of our UK Regulatory Compliance series, I’ll be focusing on requirements for preventing financial crime (also called Anti-Money Laundering or AML requirements.) Again, this is not a unique requirement for financial services firms in the U.K. – preventing financial crime is a pain felt all around the world.