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3 Ways Financial Services Firms Can Manage Complex Data

If there’s one thing every financial services firm can agree on, it’s this:

Data is one of the most valuable assets any firm has if leveraged the right way—and one of the riskiest liabilities if inaccurate or inconsistent. This makes establishing efficient, accurate data management systems all the more important—especially in complex environments.

In this article, we’ll explore the role data management plays in fostering sustainable organizational growth–and how to effectively do so.

Why Data Management is an Essential Ingredient in Sustainable Firm Growth
From back-office operations, to CRM data, investment performance and portfolio insights, data is the lifeblood of any organization, driving critical decision-making processes. Regardless of the services you offer, audiences you serve, or the type of business you run, data is what you rely on to inform strategic decisions that impact your clients, your employees, your advisors, and your bottom line.
But just as efficient data management means clean data insights, inconsistent data management practices can yield inaccurate data. Decisions based on false data can unfortunately lead to regulatory issues and privacy concerns, and in extreme cases, penalties for non-compliance. Plus, maintaining accurate and secure client data not only protects your clients’ financial well-being, it protects your business and reputation from privacy concerns resulting from mishandling of PII.

Data management needs to be a top priority for all firms in the financial services arena. But, managing data effectively is hard, especially with disparate systems acting as the source of truth for all organizational data. Add in the challenge of integrating systems that rely on varying formats and structures, it’s easy to see how data quality can become compromised.

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How to Effectively Manage Complex Data

Despite the challenges surrounding complex data management, there are simple solutions any firm can implement quickly and effectively to ensure your protection, which include:  

  1. Establish Protection Policies: Documenting clear protection policies to include definitions of proper data workflows and necessary approvals helps ensure teams are on the same page with proper data management. These policies should adhere to SEC & FINRA regulations that protect client confidentiality. Beyond proper data management, these policies demonstrate you take your clients’ protection seriously.

  2. Build a Data-Centric Culture: Encouraging team members to embrace data in decision-making cultivates a data-centric mindset and fosters a data-driven culture. Make data management a pillar of your organizational operations, educate your team about the importance of proper data handling, and it will become a top priority. 

  3. Implement Technology: From new account opening to connecting forms and straight-through processing, leveraging cutting-edge solutions can help streamline back office data processes, enhance efficiency, and unlock valuable insights. This is where leveraging a strategic partner with innovative, modern data management capabilities can help you address data complexities.

There’s no shortage of available technologies for streamlined data management. Finding a solution that’s transformative to your data management processes, however, is a steep order. But they do exist. 

Streamlining Data Management with the Right Partner

Financial services firms that need to maintain compliance and create systems that support business growth turn to Forms Logic for many reasons, including:

  • Ease of Use: Forms Logic is a cloud-based technology platform that makes it easy for RIAs, broker-dealers, alternate providers and other financial services firms to create customized workflows, access forms, integrate into CRMs, connect to e-signature platforms, and automate onboarding.
  • Efficient Processes: Helping firms ensure accurate, consistent, and reliable data to power sustainable business growth, Forms Logic is the solution for innovative firms looking to create efficient processes and own their data cost-effectively.

If you want to eliminate manual data entry, store data in a way that avoids mistakes and lowers NIGO rates, access a library of traditional and self-directed custodians’ forms through API connectivity, build custom workflows, provide a seamless client experience and gain visibility through insightful reporting, then get in touch with us today. We’re the solution to your complex data management needs.

by formslogic

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Does Big Data Help With Client Relationships?

The phrase “big data” is everywhere. It’s a catchphrase adopted by almost every company looking to make their business more efficient. We all keep hearing about how it will revolutionize the world. It will improve operations, deliver better customer service, and increase profits in most industries. In financial services, it’s not quite as simple, mainly when you’re talking about client data. Sure, core information of entities, client name, address, etc., will help in the marketing and preliminary stages of an engagement, but what happens when you start your whole client discovery process? Big data winds up coming up significantly short.

The problem with big data is that it’s a mile wide and an inch deep. It doesn’t have the depth or context to help you discover what you need to know about your clients. You can’t build a relationship on that, at least not one that will stand up over time. The client onboarding process is based on relationships built on trust, knowledge, and understanding — not just on information gathering. Treating clients as partners in their success rather than just another client number or transaction in the pipeline is crucial to an advisor’s success.

Advisors need to be able to dig deeper into their psyches and find out what clients want from life before they can genuinely connect with them on an emotional level. It’s not easy work because it takes time away from your core competencies as an advisor and requires developing new skill sets.

Of course, in the first meeting, an advisor should actively listen and identify the client’s financial goals and progress towards those goals, what gaps might exist, and ultimately if moving forward is the best course of action for them both parties. Subsequent meetings should be designed to discuss more details of the client’s situation and where the advisor may help.
But it doesn’t stop there. As the relationship continues, guess what follows – paperwork. This is where the rubber meets the road, and the nitty gritty starts. It also is where things could potentially fall apart.

Having a platform that transforms the client experience of managing paperwork into a pain-free onboarding process that takes minutes, not hours, and is more thorough and accurate than ever before continues building a great client relationship.

Forms Logic’s Navigator Platform is preferred by RIAs, Broker/Dealers, Alternative Providers, and other Financial firms. It provides standard or customized workflows for all your firm-specific, product, and custodial forms. The platform is integrated into the top CRMs and connected to all the leading e-signature platforms.

The ability to simplify and automate the process while making the client experience efficient and pleasant is what we do best. Big data is okay, but a smooth onboarding process will ultimately retain, increase and grow client relationships.

by formslogic

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WORM to WOMM - From Data Protection To Mass Data Mapping

Write Once Read Many, better known as WORM, is an old concept in data protection. But this old concept wasn’t enough to keep up with what Forms Logic was doing.

The idea of WORM is simple: Once you “write” something to the cloud, it can never be changed or modified. It’s a way of ensuring that data isn’t tampered with, which was an especially critical priority when digital data was first emerging.

Today, regulators require Broker-Dealers to comply with WORM standards to be in line with FINRA compliance oversight. Preserving records for seven years or more, so they can neither be re-written nor erased during that time is a requirement if firms are to comply with SEC Rule 17a-4 – an imperative under FINRA compliance.
But as Forms Logic has shown, today’s technology can do much more with data than merely protect it. It can help you process business effectively by making it easier to reproduce the data across multiple forms.
For Forms Logic customers, this concept known as WOMM – or Write Once, Map Many – is not as snappy an acronym, but the value it provides is far greater.
Consider when a financial advisor inputs a client’s name, address, and other vitals into a transaction form. Forms Logic’s Navigator platform allows it to do more than write once and read many. With WOMM, it is simple to repurpose that data across every subsequent form, creating the “persistency” of data. Reutilizing the data in this intelligent manner increases efficiency, reduces errors, and cuts down on double entries across the entire transaction.
Write Once, Map Many takes that protected data and makes it easy for financial firms to deploy it again and again. Perhaps even more critical for Broker/Dealers and RIAs, it simplifies the process of getting new clients onboarded and their transactions executed. Combined with one or more of the numerous e-signature providers supported by Forms Logic, there has never been a system that brings greater ease to paperwork and back-office functions than Navigator.
Especially when you consider the ease of implementation for all Forms Logic clients, it’s easy to enjoy the benefits of Navigator and its robust features like Write Once and Map Many.
WOMM. Now that you know what it does, you recognize it’s an acronym that deserves to become just as famous as WORM.

by formslogic

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Why Are Financial Firms Still Paying High Prices For Cloud Storage?

Since its advent in the 1990s and widespread availability in the 2000s, Cloud-based data storage has become widely adopted. The amount of data we can access from our mobile phones, laptops, and PCs today is staggering compared to just a few years ago. It's safe to say that Cloud-based data storage is here to stay.

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Cloud storage has become the preferred option for financial services companies that need to store large amounts of data. It is more cost-effective in the long run, saving money on hardware and software licensing costs. It's also more secure because data isn't stored on a local computer or server; instead, it's hosted in a secure facility of a third-party provider. It's flexible because internet access allows you to access files from any location.

No management worries about upgrading hardware and software every few years since everything is managed remotely by the provider. If a disaster strikes, cloud storage allows for easy recovery of lost data because all files are backed up regularly. In short, cloud storage provides the most scalable solution for storing large amounts of information efficiently and effectively with high-speed performance.

Good news, bad news...

The prices for cloud storage have dropped dramatically. We see it reflected in our everyday life. You can now pay ten dollars a month and receive 100 GB of Dropbox to store, send, and share all kinds of files. Yet this pricing drop hasn't trickled down to the financial services industry. Why is that?
Why are the most prominent document management solutions in fintech still charging over 50 times more for cloud storage than we can receive as consumers? Why hasn't this rapid price decline been passed on to the firms whose responsibility is to house and secure critical financial data?
We certainly aren't naïve and understand the different requirements that apply to the financial services industry from consumer cloud storage. Storage systems must be secured and compliant with 17a-3 and 17a-4 regulatory requirements, among others.
We are aware of the compliance and PII security of files and folders in the cloud and that different solutions for different levels of security are required for our industry. But shouldn't fintech solution providers pass some of these savings onto financial services firms? Last time we checked, it's not the 1990s!
With new SEC rules soon to be implemented, many firms will need to review and adopt an upgraded secure storage solution. Now is a great time to re-evaluate your document storage solution and its costs. Forms Logic can help. And guess what, our cloud storage pricing is on par with what's available to general consumers!

by formslogic

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A Form is a Form is a Form

Data is everywhere in the financial services industry, but most firms struggle with collecting, storing, managing, protecting, and utilizing it. Whether it's client data, investment portfolio data, application data, brokerage account data, etc., advisors have a wealth of information that can fuel other useful technologies that improve client experiences and help advisors better analyze and communicate with their clients.

cropped view of woman filling tax form at workplace with laptop

Unfortunately, many firms are filling out forms and leaving behind the most valuable aspect...the data. The abundance of paperwork and fragmentation of technology within each firm has paralyzed professionals. An example of that is form processing and data harvesting.

What is a form but an organized data capture? When you are a data company that harvests the data entered into forms, you can easily facilitate compliant workflows from the client-advisor interaction all the way through to back-office processing.
Combining integrated CRMs, e-signature solutions, custodial platforms, and other advisor tools, we provide a digital processing platform for advisors that is organized and accessible, which saves firms time and money.
There is no shortage of forms to complete, given what regulators and financial institutions require. Filling out forms takes time. Time is money. Wouldn't it be great if each time you fill out a form, all of the data is saved for future use as needed?
Couple the paperwork problem with the challenge of advisors working with multiple platforms simultaneously. They must juggle multiple CRMs, custodian websites, applications, advisor software systems, etc. This makes it difficult to know where all their client's data is located so they can easily access and process it.
Another challenge is getting this information together in one place so it's accessible anytime. And what about when one form changes? How do you keep track of those changes? We've solved this problem by creating an automated digital processing platform for advisors with updated form data that allows them to create custom workflows for each firm. We can handle everything else by providing this platform so advisors no longer have disparate applications with different outcomes.

Forms = Data

We believe that the future of financial services will be built on data and technology. We look at a form and see a data opportunity to provide a digital processing platform for advisors that is organized and accessible, which saves time and money.
We are here to help streamline your business by providing the tools needed to grow your practice. Our easy-to-use Navigator Platform sees a form as data that integrates seamlessly into your existing technology stack so that you can focus on what matters most - taking care of your clients and growing your business!

by formslogic

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End Fat-Fingering... And Give Advisors Pre-Populated Forms

Financial advisors have every reason to hate what they call “fat-fingering.” Fat-fingering is the frustrating exercise of manually inputting all the information needed to complete a form.

What is the client’s first, middle, and last name? Tap those keys to input the information. Social Security number? Have the client repeat it twice, and don’t forget that the dashes go after the third and fifth numerals (but, of course, you knew that).

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Oh, by the way, that data you entered? If it is not valid, you’ve got a (not in good order) NIGO problem on your hands – and you’ll have to do the whole thing over again.

Broker/Dealers know that their advisors hate fat-fingering. It’s time-consuming and tedious, resulting in NIGO errors more often than not.
The Broker/Dealers who are attracting the best advisors are the ones with the best technology stack – they are the ones who can ease, simplify, and speed up processes so advisors can be more focused on their expertise.

The Navigator platform from Forms Logic provides Broker/Dealers with a better solution for advisors.

The Navigator platform is not just electronic form-filling. It’s completing forms using pre-populated data – information already entered and confirmed by clients. And our platform knows precisely where the information goes on each form. This data is persistent across all forms and can easily exist from one instance to another.
One of the best functions of Navigator is the data validation that comes native to the platform. This validation is right inside the pre-populated form and will validate the correct information while providing simple steps to address anything that isn’t correct. So the completion of client forms – from onboarding, transactions, or any other use, moves from a time-consuming, tedious process to a quick, simple, and accurate one.
End fat-fingering. End time-wasting NIGO headaches. Give advisors every reason to want to be part of your Broker/Dealer operation.
Navigator is the answer.

by formslogic

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Data As A Platform? Wait, What?

Data is an incredibly powerful tool for making better decisions that impact everyone in the financial services value chain. Clients, Advisors, Broker/Dealers, RIAs, Custodians, Fin-techs, and others benefit from shared data. Most of us already acknowledge this.

But first, we must deal with capturing that data, a feat that might sound much easier than it is. Creating a common repository for all of your firm's data can quickly become a messy affair. Data is typically scattered across various departments and held in the specific applications or 'apps' each utilized to perform its function. Combining and harnessing this siloed data is both the goal and the challenge.

Have you ever viewed data as a platform in the same way you look at software apps? Wait what? Treating data as a platform is not new. Companies have used big data platforms for years to manage and extract value from their 'data lakes.' You are more likely familiar with a 'data warehouse' than a 'data lake.' A data lake stores all your company's data in a raw, unstructured form, whereas a data warehouse stores structured data that has been formatted already. While a data warehouse may seem like a better approach, consider that data storage costs are lower for a data lake than a data warehouse coupled with the fact that data lakes are less time-consuming to manage, reducing operational costs.
Most companies still focus on application functionality and little to no focus on the underlying data when purchasing technology. Why does everyone start with the app first? Why not appreciate the value of the data that the application is built upon and make it an integral part of your purchasing decision?
The answer is that many companies have failed to realize that data is one of their most valuable assets and are still struggling to adopt the mindset of treating data as a platform.

Data-first-oriented companies have made great strides by taking a "data-first" approach to purchasing software applications. They've integrated their applications directly into their data lakes so that new features and enhancements are built on top of existing data lakes rather than creating disparate data silos. Each application extracts, transforms, and loads the data it requires from the data lake.

The promise of data has been enticing for decades; however, most companies start with an app-first approach by purchasing software applications that aren't pre-integrated or easily integrated with available APIs. This 'siloing' of data makes it difficult to get a complete view of your business and make better decisions based on that information.

The new way to think of data is as a platform—a central repository for all your company's information. Data-dependent software applications ingest, scrub, and structure data from the repository so it's ready for use. Data-first companies have embraced data platforms as an effective way to operationalize data at scale across the organization. When you think about your data regarding a platform instead of products, you realize you don't need to start with the app first.

At Forms Logic, we take a data-first approach. We know companies are struggling to utilize their data across their organizations fully. We constantly ask ourselves; "What do our customers want?", "How do we better serve them?" and "How do we help them operationalize data at scale across their organization?"
When we first set out to develop the Navigator Platform, we looked to simplify the tedious and monotonous task of filling out multiple forms. Our goal was to create an automated system that alleviated the most painful aspects of form processing while maintaining a keen focus on the data acquired.
We decided to build Navigator as a data platform so it would be easy to integrate with other software applications to ingest or extract data as needed. We succeeded in making it easier to connect to your current applications and allow them to automatically flow their data into any form on our platform through straightforward data feeds or API calls. Similarly, this and other data can be easily extracted for us in other applications.
Ultimately, your data is a valuable asset. We built the Navigator Platform from the ground up with this in mind. A data-first platform that collects data and integrates all your data sources can have many advantages for you, your firm, your advisors, and their clients.

by formslogic