Etops Goes Beyond Pure Technology Offering

Christian Jedlicka Chief Product Officer Etops AG

Please explain what you think makes your firm successful in its chosen field?

With its range of solutions, Etops goes beyond a pure technology offering. Etops offers a comprehensive ecosystem for the financial industry, which, in addition to the proven and at the same time innovative software solutions, also includes comprehensive services in the areas of back and mid office as well as data interfaces and management.

What have been the main obstacles you had to overcome and how did you do so to reach this level?

In fact, it was primarily connectivity issues and, above all, data quality. Our entire platform offering, from PMS to analytics to reporting, is based on data. External asset managers and family offices often work with a large number of custodian banks that need to be connected via electronic interfaces. Unfortunately, the quality of the data delivered is quite variable and the reconciliation effort is high.

What are the main contributions do you think you bring to the wealth management industry?

Based on the realisation that the quality of the data used is essential, we have, in addition to establishing operations services, also relied from the outset on the openwealth initiative, which aims to create a uniform standard for custodian bank data in Switzerland. Etops was the first vendor to successfully connect two banks on this basis.

Where in the world do you operate – are you mainly a domestic player or international?

Etops has several locations in Switzerland, Germany and Slovakia. In terms of markets, the focus in the past was on Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

What does success look like you - can this be measured in hard numbers, or in qualitative ways, or both?

Of course, for us - as for any privately owned company - values such as turnover rate, profitability or market share are essential benchmarks for success. But factors such as customer and employee satisfaction are at least as important to us.

Whom do you look to in terms of ideas and inspiration? What other business sectors do you follow for ideas?

Of course, we monitor our peers, but our major inspiration comes from the screening of trends in investment and wealth management, developments in the private banking sector, but also technological innovations and digitalisation trends.

What position would you like your firm to hold in its sector in five years’ time?

Etops aims to be the leading provider in Europe of a comprehensive platform offering which, based on a flexible central computing core as a kind of wealth management OS, processes and prepares all the necessary data efficiently and to a high standard of quality.

What do you most like about the wealth management industry, and what do you like the least and would most like to change?

In recent years, the wealth management sector has been confronted with new challenges time and again, be it new regulators, new market trends such as sustainable investments or extreme market situations.

The wealth management of the future is both personal and digital. In other words: hybrid. Automated and standardized for the bank, yet perceived as individualized by the customer. Supporting customer interaction at all touchpoints, creating memorable moments on any customer journey. Welcome to Finfox. Investment advice redefined.