1. RethinkingtheDigitalProposition:providinginformationclientsreallyneed
09
Rethinking the
Digital Proposition:
providing information
clients really need
Top Ten Challenges for
Investment Banks 2014

2. Rethinking the Digital Proposition:
providing information clients really need
Investment Banks recognise that digitalisation is necessary
to generate new sources of revenue, but are challenged with
defining a strategy and supporting business case. As digital
businesses, they will need to change how they engage with
their employees, alter internal processes and interact with
their clients.
Digitalisation has become a necessary
part of the fabric of which businesses are
built upon today to create profitability,
growth and differentiation amongst their
competitors. Cross-industry insights are
key to understanding how high-
performing companies are delivering a
rich and engaging digital brand
experience.
Based on a 2013 survey of 300 bank
executives performed by Bank
Technology News (BTN), Investment
Banks are highly focused on enhancing
their digital capabilities.
The Case for Change
The value to be realised through
adoption of digital capabilities such as
analytics, collaboration tools and Cloud
Computing will range from improving
the client experience (resulting in greater
satisfaction and increased sales) to
increased operational efficiencies and
cost savings.
When Investment Banks become fully
integrated digital businesses, they will
transform their engagement with clients
and, more fundamentally, the way in
which they do business.
1. Seamless Collaboration
Although initially slow to embrace social
media, Investment Banks are adopting
collaboration tools that provide direct
interaction between back office
operations and clients. Having initially
used Facebook and Twitter to add to the
channels used by Marketing, Investment
Banks are now turning to more specialist
platforms such as SalesForce Chatter to
communicate with clients which are
customised and tailored for integration
09
Challenge
Positioning for Growth
2

3. integration with existing CRM systems.
These tools ensure information is
available allowing for faster results and
better decisions. Bankers will be more
productive, efficient, and innovative as
a result. When a top insurance
company decided to overhaul its
approach to managing existing
customer relationships and identifying
new areas of growth, better tools were
required to aid in the tracking, planning
and execution of their activities.
How much U.S. banks expect
to increase IT spending in 2013
Areas in which U.S. banks plan
to increase IT spending
U.S. Banks’ use of Cloud Computing
Mobile banking 57%
Security 52%
Online banking 46%
Data centre/servers 39%
Desktop computing 29%
15%
Less than 4%
4%
By 21% to 50%
25%
By 5% to 7%
32%
By 8%
to 10%
21%
By 11%
to 20%
28%
Branch expansion
32%
Advertising and
Marketing
37%
Regulation
46%
New products
and services
80%
Information
Technology
12% Infrastructure as a service
25% Software as a service
8% Platform as a service
65% None
Figure 1
Source: Bank Technology News – “Banks’ 2013 IT Spending Sees Healthy Increase: Survey” (Feb 2013)
2. Data Velocity
Clients are demanding more relevant,
tailor-made interactions at the time
and place of their choosing. Having a
faster data response model will allow
for sophisticated analysis of complex
products, such as derivatives, and
simpler understanding of changing
positions in the market and their effect
on risk in real time. This will enable
Investment Banks to aid clients in
making better investment decisions
through an improved servicing
experience by providing insights more
quickly, allowing the customer to
respond to ever-changing market
conditions.
3. Collateral Management
Traditionally, collateral management
has been siloed. Each trading desk,
prime services, financing and
counterparty credit risk management
units have their own individual
priorities, with limited co-ordination
across functions. Investment Banks are
finding that cross-desk, cross legal
entity, real-time product inventory
management and margining can boost
revenue, cut funding costs, reduce
operational and counterparty risk,
reduce regulatory capital needs and
improve compliance (e.g., segregated
account rules). This unified view for
collateral management can be achieved
through data rationalisation and
incorporation of an analytics engine
that is centrally controlled versus
individual lines of business limiting
data redundancy and increasing data
availability across the organisation.
4. Risk Analysis
Today’s regulatory environment is
affecting end to end trading activities.
The heightened regulatory controls
imposed on trading via electronic
solutions require greater transparency,
and the provision of real-time exposure
monitoring across the entire trade
lifecycle. This requires referential data
to be configured correctly and positions
to be readily available. In addition,
3
Where Banks Plan to Increase Capital Spending in 2013

4. proper infrastructure is required to
provide a view into client trends such as
transaction types, trade activity. With
this in place, forward-looking scenarios
and peer analyses become possible,
which will provide better understanding
the client’s risk profile.
Technology/Infrastructure
As Investment Banks incorporate digital-
driven enterprise into their critical
business processes, they leverage new
building blocks to support a secure and
agile environment. An investment in
infrastructure and collaboration tools is
required to become an industry leading
digital brand is required to reap the
benefits of digital capabilities
1. Analytics
Investment Banks are operating from
poorly-integrated, legacy systems.
However, refreshing technology is
frequently not feasible or cost effective.
One solution is to implement a
Corporate-owned data structure to shift
data ownership out of operations silos
and ensure a single view of customer.
Data can be used to tailor interactions,
services, and create new insights about
clients, products, and markets. Accenture
worked with a leading global Asset
Management company to evaluate
current processes, formulate a
conceptual view of service analytics to
support analytics maturity progression,
conceptualise and develop tools to
quantify and analyse cost to serve and a
recommended plan to implement
managed services around cost to serve
analytics to achieve a 25-30% uplift in
overall process efficiency.
Analytics can help an Investment Bank
marry their operational needs with client
insights enabling greater cross selling,
client retention, and price optimisation.
By knowing how to extract the most
value out of every pound of spend, as
well as being able to segment clients
according to profitability, Investment
Banks will substantially increase their
competitive edge.
2. Mobility
By 2016, the number of connected
devices is expected to grow by ~60%
from 9B today. The expectations of
investors are evolving and require that
data and access to their bankers needs to
be on their terms - anywhere, anytime in
turn requiring Investment Banks to equip
bankers with the right information at the
right time. This behaviour shift is
demanding that Investment Banks adapt
Customer
Management
Cross Sell
Strategy
Optimal
Pricing
Customer
Retention
Optimize
Decision
Making
Clients
Actual New
Worth
Banker
Desktop
Figure 2
Source: Accenture Research
4

5. their accessibility points for consumers
to not just replicate the online
experience but create personalised, on
the go services that consider customer
preferences and behaviours for the
purposes of creating personalised and
targeted programmes. The use of
mobility also creates opportunity for
things such as information sharing and
training within the Bank enabling
real-time access to training on tablets
ensuring access to the most up to date
materials, procedures and policies or
providing instant updates/notifications
to employees each time policies and
regulations are revised or created.
A large European Bank, for example,
launched an iPad application for its
financial advisors that provides
customised presentations for client
meetings and eSignature capabilities
allowing for increased sales
effectiveness. Differentiated mobile
capabilities will allow Investment
Banks to improve customer service,
reduce costs (i.e. help desk, product/
service enrolment processing) and drive
customer outreach/conversion.
3. Networking and Cloud Computing
Investment Banks have taken
advantage of point solutions in Cloud
Computing – most have outsourced
email and traditional server-based
collaboration services to Microsoft and
other established Cloud suppliers. Point
solutions have been developed over
time to support the types of
information needed about clients for
specific lines of business. The next step
is a more holistic shift to Cloud
services, and a move to open platforms
enabling multi-market access and
integration with third party Execution
and Order Management systems. This
enables systems and applications to
become more nimble in terms of future
development and will make “big data”
more available. Once hosted in the
Cloud, established solutions can be
used to organise unstructured data
allowing for personalized pricing and
more accurate risk estimation.
An infrastructure assessment will aid in
defining the right technology solution
to lower capital and operational costs
and increase efficiencies through
increased data availability and
increased capacity from current
physical infrastructure.
4. Active Defence
As the uptake of Cloud Computing and
open network concepts increases, Data
security becomes an increasing concern
requiring analytics-driven event
detection and incident response.
Investment Banks will need to integrate
solutions and approaches into an
integrated security architecture that
will proactively recognise risks and
issues before they occur. The aim is to
position security management
functions one step ahead of hackers –
making it more difficult to engineer
and profit from security breaches.
Closing
Digitalisation enables more targeted
engagement with clients, efficient
organisation of data leading to more
insightful analysis and the tighter
security over confidential data. As
Investment Banks move out of crisis
response in the post-2007 era towards
a new level of compressed RoE, these
measures provide a platform for
sustainable competitive advantage.
Resources
Penny Crosman, Bank Technology News, “Banks’ 2013
IT Spending Sees Healthy Increase: Survey”,
http://bit.ly/11sfP0b
Jeanne Harris, “How to Turn Data into a Strategic
Asset,” Outlook, Accenture, June 2010,
http://bit.ly/JHf6Sl
5

6. Copyright © 2013 Accenture
All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and
High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.
RethinkingtheDigitalProposition:providinginformationclientsreallyneed
09
About Accenture
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approximately 275,000 people
serving clients in more than 120
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ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its home page is
www.accenture.com
Accenture Experts
To discuss any of the ideas presented
in this paper please contact:
Alex Pigliucci
Managing Director
Capital Markets, New York
alex.pigliucci@accenture.com
+1 917 452 4978
Christopher Lucy
Managing Director
Capital Markets, Washington
christopher.v.lucy@accenture.com
+1 703 947 2651
Jessica Townsend
Capital Markets, Charlotte
jessica.t.townsend@accenture.com
+1 704 370 5676
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