Aim for right first time

Puritas considers client administration challenges involved when onboarding new investors

It’s interesting to think how easily three letter acronyms (TLAs) enter our lives and become commonplace. And to reflect on what we feel upon hearing them.  

LOL – there’s one. Generates a sense of fun perhaps. JFK – there’s another. Feelings of nostalgia, maybe, of historic hope and shocking tragedy. KGB? Could someone be watching? RIP – at the end of things? 

What about KYC? What feelings arise when hearing that particular TLA? Bring it on… or perhaps OMG! 

Anyone working within the finance industry knows all about KYC of course. The need to thoroughly Know Your Customer when taking on new clients is an unavoidable demand of modern regulation and compliance. What may lead to feelings of optimism or despair when doing so are the onboarding challenges involved, as Mike Feighan, director at Jersey-based client administration systems specialist Puritas examines.

‘As regulatory demands for more KYC information have increased, so too has the need for client administration systems that make life easier for those undertaking the onboarding process. Unfortunately, we often encounter systems that are far from optimised for present day corporate and KYC requirements, when it comes to both personal and institutional investors. Which can in turn result in several common challenges.’ 

A first challenge revolves around missing or inaccurate client application data, which usually means having to bother the new investor for additional information. The more manual the investment application process, the more likely this disruptive and time consuming scenario occurs.  

A second relates to the time taken and effort involved when transferring client data from application to administration system. For some companies, this remains a highly labour intensive process, manually copying details from form to system and extracting and recording verification details.  

A further challenge arises from the need to perform CDD checks on new investors. If customer due diligence providers are not integrated with the core client administration system, the onboarding process can take longer, may be prone to increased data errors and potentially more costly. 

‘Fortunately, given these challenges, we are seeing increasingly sophisticated client administration systems becoming more commonplace among offshore finance companies,’ Mike confirms. ‘Puritas offers the PureClient system, for example, which has been developed over several years with a specific emphasis on improving the new client onboarding process.’ 

Typical features among such systems are validation of client data at the point of application, and autofill functionality employed to speed up the data transfer process. There’s seamless integration with external third party systems, including common communication applications like Microsoft Teams and widely used CDD providers such as World Check. Risk assessment and data protection requirements are integrated, which means a single and straightforward onboarding workflow rather than the complexity involved in swapping between different systems. 

For companies involved in administering investment clients, the benefits of such a system are manifold. Not least, the potential for significant savings in internal resources. Through reducing complexity, improving accuracy and integrating KYC requirements, it’s possible to reduce staff numbers involved in client administration – in the case of one Puritas customer, this amounted to over £300K per annum.

For Puritas, as Mike concludes, the benefit of developing a system like PureClient is that it provides a flexible platform upon which to engage and meet the needs of differing investment administration customers. 

‘We are driven by a simple ethos: RFT or Right First Time. And we apply that principle when listening to our customers, when developing software, when rolling out and integrating systems, and when considering all the workflows associated with client onboarding and administration. It’s one TLA that I never think twice about using.’

For further information on Puritas, its products, capabilities, and client’s email  Mike Feighan  michael.feighan@puritas.co.uk or call on +44 1534 874 100.