There’s an ancient saying that a rolling stone gathers no moss, but that’s exactly what a lot of larger financial firms have become: old, worn-down rocks that have become fixed in place and covered in moss.
They keep doing the same old things and expecting them to work, despite how much the industry has changed in just the past few years – and continues to change.
New changes to the regulations governing financial service firms are coming out all the time, and that’s nothing compared to the extent to which fintech has been able to change the industry.
You’d think that, with all the resources available to them, larger financial firms would be better equipped to stay up to date. But despite some of the considerable advantages to their size, it also comes with significant drawbacks.
For example, when it comes to implementing new fintech, they have to go through layers and layers of red tape before anyone at the company can get approval to use it. Many of the people involved in the approval process tend to lean more conservative because they’re more afraid of making a mistake than of missing out on opportunities to better serve their clients.
Larger financial firms also tend to struggle with budget constraints. They often have legacy systems that are expensive to maintain, without providing the benefits of newer technologies.
While smaller firms also struggle with budget constraints, when they do have the cash to invest in their business, they’re more likely to invest in newer, better technology, rather than pouring money into older, more outdated systems.
Benefits of Keeping Up with (and Implementing) Fintech
Keeping up to date with new and emerging trends in fintech (and other aspects of the financial services industry) gives you an edge over the older firms who are more set in their ways.
Grow Faster with Fintech
Fintech allows you to provide financial services for your clients in a way that is faster, easier, and more secure. This allows you to grow your business faster because you can serve more clients in less time.
The enhanced security that comes with fintech means you can rest easy knowing your clients’ financial information is more secure than ever. The more digital our world becomes, the more theft migrates to identity theft, and the hackers are constantly coming up with new tricks.
That means we have to work even harder to stay one step ahead of them by using the latest cybersecurity fintech and recognizing that it will never be “good enough.” There will always be room for improvement, so we need to be constantly willing to make updates and changes to our fintech.
Meet Clients’ Expectations with Fintech
Our clients are becoming increasingly comfortable with technology, including fintech. They want to be able to track their investments from the comfort of their own home, and they’re getting better at navigating the technology that allows them to do that.
This also means their business is more likely to go to a company that uses the fintech that allows them to do that over a business that is behind the curve on fintech.
Benefits of Keeping Up with Regulations
Keeping up with new and updated regulations from the FINRA and the OCC is less of a competitive advantage, and more of a requirement in our industry, but some companies are faster than others to adopt new and updated regulations.
Because larger firms tend to err on the conservative side, they often require their advisors to adhere to their own regulations, which are often stricter than those required by the FINRA or the OCC.
They see this as being safe, rather than sorry, but they should be sorry about the opportunities they’re missing out on by refusing to relax their regulatory standards for their staff.
More agile firms that keep up with updates to our regulations are able to adapt to new regulations more quickly and take advantage of opportunities the larger firms insist on passing by.
This also helps us grow faster, allowing us to help even more clients.
Benefits of Joining Vertex
When it comes to enjoying the benefits of being at a large financial firm while still enjoying the benefits of smaller firms, you can’t do better than Vertex.
Our size gives us access to greater resources, but because we partner with smaller firms, we remain flexible, allowing us to quickly implement new fintech to better serve our clients.
Our partners have worked at large financial firms and owned their own, smaller firms, so they know the ins and outs of both, and they are committed to building a company that brings together the best of both worlds.
If you think partnering with Vertex might be the right move for you, just reach out to get the conversation started. We’d love to talk with you about what you’re looking for in a strategic partner, and what we can bring to the table. Contact us at in**@************rs.com to get the conversation started.
