The growing opportunities for techies in wealth management
If wealth managers largely retreated from significant technology investment last year, 2010 is tipped to be the year when budgets grow once again. And there are already signs that bigger players have an appetite for hiring.
Total IT spend among wealth managers in Europe was $1.6bn in 2009, according to analysis from Celent, which was an 8% fall on the previous year. Now, however, the firm is suggesting that wealth management tech investment will be on an upward trajectory for the next three years at least.
This is likely to manifest itself through investment in front office and back office requirements, including advisor platforms, compliance, reporting, self-service, and integration.
"Projects that were put on hold in 2008-2009 will likely restart in 2010," says Arin Ray, analyst at Celent.
Larger wealth managers have already been recruiting. For instance, we understand that Barclays Wealth is close to completing a hiring spree consisting of nearly 100 roles, including project managers, business analysts, development and support staff. HSBC is also believed to be taking on techies for a wealth management project.
"The larger players are investing a lot of money in technology, and we're already seeing significant hiring plans coming to market," says Nick Price, managing director of IT recruiters Bright Purple. "Already we're having problems finding adequate supplies of technical expertise, so if hiring really takes off this year, talent will be in short supply."
Sadly, significant levels of recruitment are likely to be restricted to the larger wealth management players, as most smaller operations tend to invest in third-party technology.
For example, UK private bank C Hoare & Co recently bought SimCorp Dimension's investment management platform and Third Rome, which focuses on Russian high-net-worth-individuals, rolled out Odyssey Financial Technologies' software.
Odyssey opened a development centre in Glasgow in November 2009, where it may eventually employ 200 people.
