Nicolas Droz is a Partner at Swisspath Captial – a successful Wealth Management firm from Zurich and a Client of WealthArc. Today, we ask him about the journey with Portfolio Management System selection and implementation, as well as the key results achieved thanks to it.
Please tell us briefly about Swisspath and your role there?
Swisspath is an independent multi-family office serving clients worldwide, combining wealth and asset management with legal, financial, and tax expertise, for both bankable and non-bankable assets. I am a partner of Swisspath Capital, which is the asset management company of the Swisspath Group.
What is your unique approach towards your clients?
Our approach is truly holistic, and we serve our clients through dedicated specialists from Swisspath Consulting, Capital, Yachting, Aviation, and Health. We assist our clients in every aspect of their business and financial affairs providing the bespoke, sustainable solutions that our clients need to fully thrive and prosper.
In your opinion, how is technology influencing Wealth Management space and the relation with Investors?
Nowadays it is not enough to serve clients from 8 AM to 5 PM only through the traditional ways (personal meetings and phone). We see that clients require constant, direct, and immediate access to their assets no matter the time. It is crucial to offer state of the art online service ensuring the highest data quality and security standards.
What were the key issues you were looking to solve using the Portfolio Management System?
We were looking for an integrated system combining Portfolio Management, CRM, and Risk Management features together. For us, it was essential to find a solution that is operating fully automatically, without additional operational costs. We also did not want to bind too many internal resources to maintaining different platforms.
What were the doubts or concerns you had before or during the new technology implementation?
Our main concern was the data quality of different solutions we were considering. We saw that not all the providers offer the same level of reliability and therefore data precision. We also doubted some of the consolidation methods, as they seem too manual and exposed to human errors.
What is more, we are working with multiple custodian banks, so the highest quality of consolidation and reconciliation was of the essence. Last but not least, we also wanted a system that is secure and, that gives a possibility for direct interventions if needed.
What has changed after implementing Portfolio Management System?
After the PMS implementation, we where able to automatize several important processes that were previously done manually. Thanks to that we are now saving time that can be used to better serve our clients.
From our perspective, the three main processes that have been improved the most are:
- portfolio monitoring for asset management guidelines,
- invoicing of the management fees
- AML monitoring.
WealthArc clearly helped us to optimize and automatize these processes. On average, we now save at least 2 full working days per quarter only on the invoicing process.
What made you team up with WealthArc as the Portfolio Management System provider?
The decision-making process was not easy, and we were considering various options. As mentioned before, the overall data quality was the number one factor for us and WealthArc proved to be the most reliable in that area. Another important aspect was enabling our Clients to access and understand their overall asset situation (both bankable and non-bankable) in an easy and comprehensive way, and we achieved that with WealthArc’s Client Portal.
For me personally, it was about the Management Information System that gives me the overview of all the assets across portfolios and revenues as well as the performance of my team.
Finally, WealthArc gave us the opportunity to test the tool with live data for some months before we decided to go ahead with them, so we could check the system hands-on and be sure about our decision.