Technology Innovation - Finance

Client Reporting
Transparent, Sophisticated and Customizable
The new portfolio statement of Private Bank (Switzerland)

INSIDE

Case Study: Private Bank Switzerland - Private Wealth Management          

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Switzerland’s private bankers have long been renowned for their skill at developing asset allocation and management strategies on a global scale. Their tradition of thinking internationally and diversifying their clients’ investments in fact, dates back to the 18th Century.

Private Bank (Switzerland) is a center of excellence for Private Wealth Management. Their business philosophy reflects many of the traditional Swiss virtues and all their activities are guided by similar ethical values. Stability for them translates into long-term client relationships, while discretion and trustworthiness go hand in hand with confidentiality and reliability.

•  The Mission
A transparent, sophisticated and customizable  new portfolio statement. It is the clear aim of the bank to provide first class service and utmost transparency in all aspects of the business relationship with the customer. Accurate and timely high quality information is key for Private Bank customers when it comes to monitoring and reviewing their investment strategy.

•  The Objective
Implementation of a single client reporting document lifecycle solution by one vendor to produce all portfolio types for mass and ad-hoc report production with integrated process management for document printing and archiving.
“We are committed to constantly improve our services through innovative tools or techniques”, says Raymond E. Hess, Business Support, Deutsche Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. As part of this process the reporting tools have been redesigned and enhanced by providing a new, more sophisticated portfolio statement.

The new consolidated statement combines the cash and security investments conveniently in one single document. All reports have the same look and feel for mass, on-line and ad-hoc production. 

•  The most important requirement: A flexible design tool!

- Fast and easy layout changes
- Dynamic table of contents (with two levels)
- Logo and graphics management
- Bar code and OMR code support
- Free and static text in 6 languages
- Indexing
- Flexible use of any data type or structure
- Modular development of document elements and their reuse 
- Document format independent of platform, printer and archive
- Identical look and feel of mass and on-line report production
- Overlapping charts for Portfolio Performance
- Grouping functionality for nested tables

The portfolio statement is organized into five key sections, ranging from a top-level summary of the clients financial situation to an in-depth analysis of all underlying holdings. Subsequently, each report offers increasingly greater detail about assets and liabilities. The composition of each report is configurable per client.

•  Mass Printing
The portfolio statements can be received automatically in the frequency of the client’s preference. They are either printed or mailed periodically (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannually and annually) or printed on demand when the client visits the bank.

•  Ad-hoc Printing
Interfaces with the Web Application and is performed as a local print. The reports are printed in full color, highlight or black and white. Xerox IPDS printers are used to print full color. Fonts are defined as outline fonts in 600 dpi. All printers are driven by the Papyrus Print Server with its integrated print process management. The Papyrus desktop for print operators and authorized users provides information on all jobs and printers in the network transparently and seamlessly across several platforms.

•  Smooth Project Implementation
After a successful proof of concept and pilot installation in the Private Bank Switzerland environment, the decision was made for Papyrus. Based on the defined project plan, the new statements were quickly developed using Papyrus Designer and at the same time, a test environment was implemented. For high volume formatting of mass production and on-line report generation, an AIX server with Papyrus DocEXEC was centrally installed.

The Papyrus PrintPool collects all to be printed documents, and is configured to provide all required output management functions for periodical mailings and on-demand printing.  The AFP PRINT DataStream is checked into the PrintPool database. A daily job is started depending on the type of delivery. Either the AFP file is printed immediately on the IPDS printer, or additional information is added to the AFP document (i.e. new cover page with the address of the recipient).

Papyrus WebArchive was installed to convert the AFP files into PDF and by using an XML file interface the IBM OnDemand archive was integrated for long term storage.

•  The Workflow
Data from the business system is received by the Papyrus ICD Adapter (Batch) and Papyrus XML Adapter (Online). The documents are formatted using Papyrus DocEXEC and distributed in several different AFP output files. Operators in different locations monitor and maintain all system processes using the Papyrus WebControl functions in the Papyrus Desktop. 

• Challenges and Achievements
While the project was implemented, Private Bank Switzerland acquired a new bank and therefore the design/layout of reports and workflow had to be adapted to the new requirements. This was positively demonstrated by the flexibility of the Papyrus system. Changes could be realized quickly without changing the application creating the input data files.

• Reusability
The implementation at Private Bank Switzerland was later also used with little effort at Private Bank in Singapore for their document applications, by using already existing WebControl and document definitions and setups.