In a report published by US financial management and advisory firm, Merrill Lynch, half of Europe’s millionaires are Russian and their number is growing twice as fast as the global rate. So with all this money is the Russian financial sector geared up for wealth management? Sergey Shelyagin, director at EPAM Systems, observes that although the Russian banks are quite keen to offer such services, overall, they noticeably yield to the longstanding experience, knowledge and efficiency of European banks in this sector (such as UBS and Credit Suisse).
Shelyagin, whose employer, EPAM Systems, assists banks and various financial institutions with the development of wealth management technologies, observes that the interest in wealth management in Russia manifests itself in a host of dedicated conferences and forums. The neighboring countries of Kazakhstan and Ukraine are also promising markets, as well as Belarus. Product development, software maintenance and support, and application testing are up to the word’s highest quality standards at these countries due to a well-established education system. ‘Unfortunately, it is hard to gauge this type of market, as it is quite closed and understandably reluctant to go public,’ says Shelyagin. ‘So, there is more speculation than fact.’
In terms of IT, Shelyagin observes that more and more wealth management organizations turn to the CRM systems that enable a holistic view of the customer’s capital structure and allow operating these funds more efficiently. The tendency with the CRM solutions is to acquire a third party system and then customize it under the entity’s own steam or outsource the customization to a specialist firm.
EPAM has experience in the field although the company is under obligation not to disclose the names of its wealth management customers. EPAM customized Pivotal CRM – a CRM product suite from a Canadian provider, CDC Software. ‘We changed about 50 per cent of the software, leaving the main engine – document flow – intact,’ says Shelyagin. ‘We also developed a portal application so that a client has access to his/her portfolio via a personalized window.’
Source: IBS Publishing
Shelyagin, whose employer, EPAM Systems, assists banks and various financial institutions with the development of wealth management technologies, observes that the interest in wealth management in Russia manifests itself in a host of dedicated conferences and forums. The neighboring countries of Kazakhstan and Ukraine are also promising markets, as well as Belarus. Product development, software maintenance and support, and application testing are up to the word’s highest quality standards at these countries due to a well-established education system. ‘Unfortunately, it is hard to gauge this type of market, as it is quite closed and understandably reluctant to go public,’ says Shelyagin. ‘So, there is more speculation than fact.’
In terms of IT, Shelyagin observes that more and more wealth management organizations turn to the CRM systems that enable a holistic view of the customer’s capital structure and allow operating these funds more efficiently. The tendency with the CRM solutions is to acquire a third party system and then customize it under the entity’s own steam or outsource the customization to a specialist firm.
EPAM has experience in the field although the company is under obligation not to disclose the names of its wealth management customers. EPAM customized Pivotal CRM – a CRM product suite from a Canadian provider, CDC Software. ‘We changed about 50 per cent of the software, leaving the main engine – document flow – intact,’ says Shelyagin. ‘We also developed a portal application so that a client has access to his/her portfolio via a personalized window.’
Source: IBS Publishing
