India's Leading Financial Firm Transforms with AWS

by Mark Snodgrass

Waterfield Advisors is India’s leading Independent Wealth Advisory Firm. Established in 2011, Waterfield advises on over USD 3.5 Billion of assets on behalf of prominent Indian business families whom it serves from its 6 offices in India. Built on the fundamentals of trust, integrity and transparency, Waterfield was one of the first financial services firms in the country to introduce and pioneer the concept of Investment Advisory in Wealth Management.

The Wealth Management Industry in India is undergoing a profound change. In September 2020, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announced the segregation of advisory and distribution activities at the client level to avoid conflict of interest. This was a significant validation of Waterfield’s pioneering business model. However, conflict of interest remains a significant issue for competition as these companies continue to manufacture their own financial products. Waterfield has a head-start over their competitors having understood how to create an independent, sustainable, and profitable advisory business.

The Wealth Management industry in India has now ushered in the era of digital transformation. While there are many apps that meet the need of retail investors, the solution for High and Ultra-High Networth Individuals has been limited and is now evolving.

Sowing the Seeds of Digital Transformation:
In 2018, the firm took its first initiative to automate a portfolio diagnostic report that would previously have taken up to 7 days when created manually from scratch and reduced it to a few seconds. No existing third-party vendor had the technology or technical wherewithal to build a data-driven platform. This led to Waterfield kickstarting its journey in new digital experiences and tools to empower their client’s investment decisions.

First Walk on the Cloud:
Like most organisations, Waterfield previously operated via on-premises servers. The automated diagnostic report faced scalability constraints and integration limitations with Waterfield’s existing legacy systems. To optimise delivery of the diagnostic report, Waterfield opted for a combination of AWS cloud services provided by their Cloud Services partner Hararei India, to integrate with existing physical servers for the infrastructure.

The Birth of Waterfield’s Proprietary Software:
As Waterfield Advisors was growing, the need for a platform with Advanced Analytics and AI emerged. As an advisory firm, Waterfield have an open architecture platform working with all the leading product manufacturers across AMCs, PMS and AIF providers. The information exchange with the investment product producers is twofold:

1. Reporting of Investments made by Waterfield Clients which includes holding statements, transaction statements, capital gains statements, etc.
2. Data required for Product Evaluation such as attribution, vintage, team members history, etc is sourced from product manufacturer and is utilised for analytics of client investments and for record keeping.

The previous third-party vendor software was not sophisticated enough to handle the massive amounts of data Waterfield Advisors received monthly and to generate effective client-ready output in a timely manner. Moreover, the data was hosted on outdated physical servers with the commensurate constant challenges around data backup, security, and space configuration.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit India in March-2020, Waterfield took the bold step of implementing a comprehensive solution with a clear focus on automation of portfolio analytics, easy upload of account statements and reconciliation of data with a turnaround time of less than a minute for each report. To enable their digital expansion, they needed a scalable and functional solution for their architecture. Working with their Cloud/IT partner Hararei India, Waterfield chose Amazon Web Services (AWS) for this initiative.

“With AWS, we could plan a large migration while Working from Home” said Kartik Kini, COO, Waterfield Advisors. “The interface is very easy to navigate, and the depth of the toolset is truly impressive.”

Finding the Right Partner in Amazon Web Services (AWS)
When Waterfield Advisors contemplated a platform to deliver their next generation financial analytics and reporting to their clients, they realised that they needed a solution that provided world class capabilities and capacity on demand for their premier client base. It was important to them that they not be restricted with capabilities available in the Cloud platform, and went with the market leader, with the greatest range of advanced services.

Ensuring Security of Client Data
Confidentiality and security of their client data is of paramount importance to Waterfield Advisors. The range and sophistication of security controls in AWS is unparalleled, and the environment provides all the features and capabilities for Waterfield Advisors to be confident in their client data security. Waterfield is also the first Wealth Advisory Firm in the country to be certified ISO27001 for its Information Security.

Intuitive and Best in Class Solutions:
Waterfield also launched its revolutionary Mobile App which provides superior user experience and tools to navigate complex wealth data. The app covers Waterfield’s thought leadership reports, access to a curated list of Non-Profit organisations along with easy access to the Relationship Management team.

Waterfield is on its way to register a record year by onboarding a third of its total clients in 2020, all amidst a lockdown, leveraging its Digital capabilities through data-enabled propositions and a seamless digital onboarding process. The tools available through AWS also enabled smooth induction and training of 30 new employees over the last year.

Waterfield have implemented Robotic Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning Solutions across various processes such as reconciliation of client portfolios, whitelisting of mutual funds, credit risk evaluation, etc. This has helped them achieve an optimal level of data accuracy and has enabled the company to redirect their most valuable resources towards more business-valueadding activities.

Kini says Waterfield’s journey is focused on providing best-in-class personalized advice at scale. “We envisage our digital capabilities playing a complementary role to our wealth advisory services across engagement, information, and transactions. Working with an experienced AWS partner, Hararei India, has enabled us to leverage AWS to consistently deliver on agility, flexibility, and scalability, making it a key pillar for our future digital endeavours."