Success Story – Internationales Bankhaus Bodensee (IBB)

More digitalisation, less regulatory work – How a bank is setting new standards in wealth management

Experiences from IBB's point of view

Regulation and digitalisation do not have to be a burden!

The challenge

Our project focused on developing a future-oriented asset management in private banking. Especially as a smaller specialised bank, we have to struggle with the ever increasing regulatory requirements and the associated costs. At the same time, we as a bank, just like our customers, have the highest demands in terms of customer advice and digitalisation. The challenging part of the project was to find a solution that would give us long-term competitive advantages and focus – without costs getting out of hand.

The solution

We deliberately chose investify TECH’s technology and regulatory platform. As a licensed company, investify TECH can also take on our mandatory regulatory tasks. We focus entirely on our strengths – an absolute novelty in our industry. Our core competencies of sales and asset management are supported by modern digital customer and advisory processes. Especially as a smaller bank, we can benefit from investify TECH’s platform strategy, as continuous (regulatory) innovations do not cause additional costs.

Initially, the question was "Make" or "Buy"?

IBB's most important evaluation criteria in the realignment:

Time to Market

It was important for us to be able to start as quickly as possible with an innovative solution. Like many other market participants, we didn't want to just complain about regulation for years and sit idly by – we wanted fast entrepreneurial solutions, which generally distinguishes the Würth Group.

Lasting competitive advantages

With the realignment, we wanted to lay the foundation for long-term competitive advantages. We are firmly convinced that the growing regulatory requirements and the complexity of digitalisation will remain an ongoing issue for the coming years. Complex individual components and interfaces are not only inhibiting, but also expensive.

Low project risks and costs

It was important to us to keep the project risks as low as possible, as asset management is critical to our success. In addition, it quickly became clear in the run-up that we needed a solution that could be calculated in the long term – which means that the costs had to be kept within reasonable limits. This also applied to the setup costs.

Focus and legal certainty

Our focus at IBB is clearly on sales and asset management – this is where we are strong and can generate growth. A solution had to be based on this – we strive to be compliant at all times without any ifs and buts and support our employees in the best possible way.

IN RETROSPECT, ONLY "BUY" WAS A REAL OPTION FOR BUILDING A TRULY INNOVATIVE ASSET MANAGEMENT BUSINESS THAT FITS THE TIMES.

Joachim Mei
Former member of the Board of Directors at IBB

ONLY WITH THE INVESTIFY TECH PLATFORM DID WE FIND THE RIGHT ANSWERS.

ANDREAS FALGER
Director and Head of Private Banking at IBB

“Based on our clearly defined catalogue of criteria, we made the buy decision. This was followed by a comprehensive vendor analysis and evaluation. Since we were also looking for a solution to minimise the regulatory burden, the circle of providers was limited. We had to exclude pure software providers. Likewise, custodian banks that only provide simple onboarding etc. Instead, we were looking for a partner with technological and regulatory expertise. We found what we were looking for with investify TECH.

We were convinced that investify TECH offers solutions for smaller and large players alike and continuously adapts them to market and regulatory requirements. Platforms are the future – also in banking. The modularity and white-label capability allows us to tailor the scope of services to the bank’s needs.”

TOGETHER WITH IBB, WE SHOW THAT DIGITALISATION AND PERSONAL CONSULTATION BELONG TOGETHER.

Dr. Harald Brock
Managing Director at investify TECH

Discover now:

IBB's smart customer service

Hybrid sales tools

At IBB, a completely new level of industrialisation can be achieved without sacrificing individual advice and ongoing support. All sales and settlement processes can be carried out conveniently from home or in the branches.

Fully digital onboarding

The advisors can now carry out fully digitalised onboarding and account opening process. The consequence: The bank no longer requires back office capacities.

Support for the advisors

The advisors are supported by a variety of sales-promoting simulations. The entire advisory meeting is documented automatically. Customer management is carried out via an advisor-centred dashboard. The entire application and documentation (incl. signing of contracts) are paperless if required.

MiFID compliance

The platform provides complete MiFID-compliant reporting (ex-ante, ex-post and loss threshold report) – here, too, capacities are no longer required for the preparation in the bank.

Modern reportings

Thanks to state-of-the-art apps and appealing reports, a completely new experience has been created for customers that is unparalleled in the industry.

Tailor-made and from a single source:

investify TECH offers an integrated system that creates simplicity.

Integrated high performance
portfolio management system
Integrated reporting
(costs, quarterly)
Integrated custodian
bank connection

Integrated digital/hybrid
end-customer onboarding
Integrated client, advisor
and asset manager portals
Integrated billing
management

BEING A SMALL BUT FINE BANK NEED NO LONGER BE A DISADVANTAGE TODAY - NOT EVEN IN THE CONTEXT OF REGULATION!

JOACHIM MEI
Former member of the Board of Directors at IBB

We now have the regulatory burdens and costs permanently under control!

At investify TECH, the ongoing costs of asset management for software and regulation are based on the size of the bank. This means that the regulatory costs of MiFID, MiFIR, etc. no longer place a disproportionate burden on smaller institutions in terms of asset management and are thus manageable even for a smaller bank. In addition, the use of a proven platform significantly minimises risks.

Significant efficiency gains

All time-consuming (regulatory) tasks are outsourced to investify

Monitoring of
investment guideline

Monitoring of
portfolio structure

Monitoring of
loss threshold

Ordering and
order control

Payment
processes

Reporting
(quarterly + costs)

Billing and
fee collection

Maintenance
and operation

Adaptation to current
regulatory requirements

FOR OUR PARTNERS, IT IS CRUCIAL THAT THEY DO NOT INCUR ANY ADDITIONAL COSTS OR PERSONNEL EXPENSES FOR THE INTEGRATION OF REGULATORY CHANGES - THIS IS FULLY COVERED BY INVESTIFY TECH.

ANSGAR WIGGER
Managing Director at investify TECH

Start your own success story!

You too can set up your asset management in a forward-looking way!

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WE KNEW OUR GOAL, INVESTIFY TECH THE TECHNOLOGICAL PATH. THIS WAS THE CORNERSTONE OF OUR FUTURE-PROOF PARTNERSHIP FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR CUSTOMERS.

ANDREAS FALGER
Director and Head of Private Banking at IBB

The future can come

The results or efficiency gains that we were able to achieve exceed the expectations of the project team. While many competitors in the market struggle with poor and personnel-intensive IT systems, processes and mountains of paperwork and also unsettle customers, IBB can fully focus on its strengths. IBB’s innovative approach to regulation and digitalisation even puts it in a position to benefit from the increasingly close supervision, as it is significantly better positioned than the competition in this area.

The joint roadmap of investify TECH and IBB goes even further: in the coming months, further development steps will be taken to make asset accumulation even more convenient for customers. A bank can only remain truly successful if it has its finger on the pulse.

Information about the bank

Internationales Bankhaus Bodensee AG is part of the renowned Würth Group (> 70,000 employees, > € 14 billion in sales) and is therefore particularly entrepreneurial.

IBB’s target groups:
Private banking,
corporate clients,
commercial real estate clients,
receivables financing sports

IBB employees:
> 170 employees

Balance sheet total of IBB:
> € 1.5 billion

Learn more about the realignment at IBB

When Mifid II suddenly becomes a competitive advantage

„Internationales Bankhaus Bodensee (IBB) from the Würth Group is certainly not one of the really big institutions, but it has recently found a forward-looking way of dealing with (regulatory) costs. Progress, enterprise, customer orientation and efficiency through processes were the inspiration for the reorientation in private banking. Two people involved report.“

Andreas Falger (Guest author) | Harald Brock (Guest author) | Published: 02.09.2020
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Internationales Bankhaus Bodensee expands cooperation with investify TECH

Internationales Bankhaus Bodensee AG is expanding its range of services on the basis of the investify TECH platform. In the future, the bank will also offer a Robo Advisor that uses digitalisation technology to offer professional IBB AG asset management to new customer groups.

Published: 05.11.2021

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