Enhanced client experiences with holistic, tailored portfolio
views
One crucial outcome of a partnership with Addepar has been the
impact of the new technology on the experiences of the firm’s
end clients. From the benefits of the client portal to the
firm’s delivery of tailored portfolio performance views,
Addepar has enabled Saranac to provide an enhanced user
experience — alongside access to superior data and analysis
“Clients really love that we are able to give them the views
that they want — views that are now tailored to each specific
user,” says Benjamin Akesson, Investment Advisor. “Our clients
have been very happy with Addepar overall, and particularly
when it comes to private markets and discreet holdings, which
has typically been a very hard space to track. But with
Addepar, it's been easy; we input the information and can
then simply pull up a dashboard of how each investment’s been
performing.
“A lot of our clients are multi-banked and might have up to
nine different custodians,” Akesson adds. “They’d spend a lot
of time logging into each portal looking at what's going
on or trying to consolidate analysis manually. Whereas now
they've got it available to them at their fingertips
through the client portal.”
Alongside improved views and the benefits of the client
portal, Saranac also found Addepar’s reporting tools improved
the firms’ efficiency and the quality of their reporting.
“Our legacy system had shortcomings when it came to our
reporting process, especially for complex portfolios including
alternative investments,” says Rick Bains. “Addepar
streamlined the whole process and hugely improved the ability
to aggregate data across liquid and illiquid assets, providing
a holistic view of portfolios with a world-class reporting
tool that was highly customizable for our various bespoke
client needs.”
We selected Addepar because it allowed us to handle
complex portfolios — enabling us to be the best stewards
of our clients wealth.
Rick Bains,
Head of Technology
Improved efficiency enabling better, more timely client
interactions
For Saranac, another significant benefit of partnering with
Addepar has been its impact on efficiency and — subsequently —
client interactions. Through access to hundreds of data feeds,
alongside the automation of many previously time-consuming
manual tasks, the firm has noticed a jump in efficiency.
And through this reduction in manual work and access to a
breadth of quality data, the firm has found it can respond to
clients faster and more effectively.
“It's just increased accuracy: the analysis is more
timely and less prone to error because there's no manual
work involved,” says Benjamin Akesson. “Now, we’re talking
minutes instead of days spent on detailed analysis and manual
work.
“One huge benefit of this has been an increased ability to
offer better advice and answer questions in a more timely
manner. For example, a client could ask us about their
exposure to a specific country or about a concentration risk.
Before, we’d have to go and pull data from say Morningstar or
Bloomberg and bring it all together. Now, we can do that
within Addepar very quickly by using the filters or specific
views. We can even share them with clients so they can
self-serve through the portal. It works really well,” says
Akesson.
Boosted scalability as Saranac grows
Finally, Saranac highlights the overall boost to its
scalability as a result of transitioning to a quality
technology solution. From retention to pitching, Saranac finds
Addepar is received well by clients and prospects in different
markets.
“What Addepar has allowed us to do is scale our offering and
to do so with less human resources than we would've
needed otherwise,” says Akesson. “It is not just client
retention — even with prospects, we’ve found that having
Addepar has really helped. We’ve set up demos and when we run
through them, clients are always very impressed with how
everything looks. You can tell it’s a very good product. I
think it has been great for us.
Bains adds, "We selected Addepar because it allowed us to
handle complex portfolios — enabling us to be the best
stewards of our clients wealth. Addepar could offer data
aggregation capabilities, advanced analytics, custom reporting
features, and ability to handle complex portfolios including
alternative investments”
Successful scalability
also included Saranac’s OCIO service. The firm has experienced
exponential growth across the UK and Europe, as a result of
the firm’s commitment to delivering the service — and
crucially, its transition to the Addepar platform.
“At
the heart of Saranac’s OCIO service is a cutting-edge
technology platform powered by Addepar,” explains Akesson.
“Saranac delivers the complete OCIO lifecycle, from strategic
planning to implementation, ongoing management and bespoke
customisation of the Addepar platform.” Overall, Addepar has
supported Saranac in meeting firm-wide scaling objectives and
overcoming all primary challenges.
“Addepar has lived up to our expectations so far, and helped
us to exceed client expectations,” concludes Bains.
At the heart of Saranac’s OCIO service is a cutting-edge
technology platform powered by Addepar...
Benjamin Akesson,
Investment Advisor
