Fintech nerds are convinced that the end of the customer relationship manager is nigh and that they will be replaced by robots. However, chances are that the client adviser will soon see a revival of his role exactly because of the new technologies, writes Marc Lussy in an exclusive essay for finews.first.


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Life isn't easy for today's relationship manager. They devote a considerable part of their working day to compliance issues. Customers frequently don't appreciate this part of the work enough.

The market has become difficult because of very low interest rates. Investment products are increasingly complex and customers becoming all the more demanding. And thanks to better training and the Internet, the clients know more and more about the business themselves.

Pressure on margins is increasing. The fight for new money is getting tougher and the pressure by the employer on the adviser is mounting. The relationship manager constantly has to stay abreast of new IT applications.

«Financial experts will advise us even in future; not be working for banks.»

Once upon a time, client advisers simply understood the needs of their customers. Today, their duties include analysis, acquisition, law and IT. And now, they are about to be made redundant thanks to robots?

That's a pessimistic view. Financial experts will advise us even in future; not be working for banks, but acting independently.

Chances are that due to digitization, client advisers will refocus on their core competences: to advise their clients to the best of their knowledge in the financial jungle.

One the one hand, many relationship managers believe their jobs will be here to stay. On the other, fintech gurus argue that human advisers will soon be a thing of the past. Who to believe?

Both sides will probably be right to a certain extent. There's a lot to suggest that the development of technology will fuel the trend away from relationship managers with a very broad portfolio of duties. The job will likely turn into a kind of trusted partner: a person who persistently concentrates on his core competences and who acts as a confidante and even coach to his clients.

«I don't believe that the majority of advisers be replaced by robots.»

Today's adviser profile likely will disappear slowly. But I don't believe that the majority of advisers be replaced by robots.

The financial industry has become more complex, not easier. Clients are their own biggest enemy in respect to profitable investments. They may be better trained nowadays, but judging from surveys, their knowledge about finances remains rather limited.

Today's complex investment products, the fee structure at the banks and new paradigms all pose a true challenge. To select the best partner from among the great number of wealth managers is a difficult task.

In an attempt to tackle these challenges, robo-advisers are of little help. But it opens plenty of opportunities for a trusted partner. Such as partner needs to know the financial market inside out. To be able to independently advise a client, a trusted partner must not give guidance on the allocation of assets him- or herself.

The service provided focuses solely on the development of an investment strategy tailor-made for the client. The trusted partner supports his customer in choosing the best suited bank or asset manager. He will go on to regularly examine the portfolios of his clients in respect to risk, return and costs.

Zurich-based Zwei Wealth Experts is one of the companies already implementing this model. Inexpensive technological aids are required to make possible such important services on a large scale, not least for smaller companies. These are now available, thanks to digitization.

«The key to success for trusted partners is the trust of their clients.»

To truly breathe life into this concept and make it viable for experienced specialists to make this their job on an independent basis, reasonably priced digital platforms are a must, allowing for such monitoring functions.

Uber is an example from the transportation industry of how such a concept might work. And in trading, Wikifolio offers an interesting platform to traders who want to win new customers through their performance.

Descartes Finance has entered the asset management and robo-advisery scene this year. They are also «only» a platform: Descartes merely selects the asset manager, which offer their investment expertise on their own gateway. The client then compiles his portfolio with the help of an algorithm.

For the monitoring of the services, Performance Watcher has been available as a comparison tool already for quite some time. Private bank clients and professional asset managers anonymously make their performance data available on a daily basis. That way they enable the comparison with rivals.

For trusted partners, such a platform is incredibly important if he is to offer his services in an efficient way. A trusted partner will compare the portfolios of the asset managers, which invest the money of their clients, on a daily basis to find out whether the manager generates a proper yield.

«Transparency will change a lot in the financial industry.»

The key to success for trusted partners is the trust of their clients. To gain it, he has to create absolute transparency in respect to the performance of investments and he needs to demonstrate the transparency created in an easily understandable way. It used to be a tabu to speak about the performance of your institute. People didn't think that transparency in regard to return on investments was what customers wanted.

Many financial-market experts have changed their opinion in this respect: a few weeks ago, Credit Suisse Chairman Urs Rohner in Zurich expressed his support for more transparency. When asked whether he would push a button which would enable all CS customers to instantly compare the performance of their investments with those of other banks, he answered in the affirmative.

Boris Collardi, the CEO of Julius Baer, at an economic forum in March let it be known that he sees transparency as an opportunity. Often, these words remain words with action waiting to happen. This is understandable, because transparency will change a lot in the financial industry.

«Today's situation is not satisfactory, neither for bankers nor for customers»

Some remaining myths will be destroyed along the way. The positive aspects however will strongly outweigh. The option of portfolio comparisons may create some need for explanation in an initial phase. Questions about how the information at hand is to be used will strongly boost the demand for trusted partners.

Today's situation is not satisfactory, neither for relationship manager nor for the customers. Change therefore is necessary. Digitization has the potential to accelerate the change strongly. The old ways will probably soon belong to the past.

This isn't the end of the relationship manager, but the beginning of a new era. Respectively, the return of the need to understand your customer and the beginning of the era of trusted partners, often cited here, who is able to act in the interest of his client because of his independence and his focus.


For a decade, Marc Lussy worked as a trader and in the wealth management. Subsequently he was put in charge of large-scale change-management and IT projects. The financial planner became an independent adviser on digitization five years ago and has been a parter at Investment by Objective for the past year.

Lussy is a fintech afficionado from day one, sharing his insights as a blogger. He works as a lecturer for banking, leadership and digitization at various universities.


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