Strategy and Solutions
Our client is a national Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) serving thousands of high-net-worth households and family offices across multiple states. Although the advisory franchise was strong, its onboarding process lagged behind: paper packets, redundant data entry, and disjointed e-signature tools slowed account openings and introduced compliance risk. Zymr was asked to rebuild onboarding as a secure, automated, end-to-end experience—covering KYC/AML verifications, e-signing, custodial account setup, and advisor compliance workflows.
This engagement mattered because onboarding is the first operational impression a client sees. By removing paper and manual checks, the RIA could cut cycle time, reduce errors, and shift advisor hours from administration to advice—while meeting regulator expectations without drama. The mandate was simple: fast approvals, zero compliance findings, and a digital journey clients actually like using.
The RIA’s operational reality showed friction at every handoff, increasing both cost and risk.
Manual, Paper-Heavy Processes
Advisors collected IDs and suitability data via email and PDF forms. Compliance then keyed the same fields into internal systems and custodian portals, creating delays and transcription errors.
Fragmented Toolchain
E-signature, KYC screening, and custodian account creation happened in separate applications with no data hand-off. Clients re-entered information three or four times; staff reconciled mismatches by phone.
Compliance Exposure
Customer Identification Program (CIP) checks, sanctions screening, and adverse media review were inconsistent. Evidence lived in inboxes and network folders, leaving audits reliant on tribal knowledge.
Advisor Productivity Loss
Senior advisors spent non-billable hours nudging clients for missing documents and status updates, pushing first-trade dates past market windows and frustrating new relationships.
In practical terms, the firm needed a single, governed workflow that captured data once, reused it everywhere, and produced audit-ready evidence automatically. Without that backbone, time-to-funding would remain slow and control error-prone.
The barriers were not a single bottleneck but an accumulation of small breaks—duplicate typing, file chasing, and unclear control ownership. Fixing onboarding meant orchestrating people, process, and systems into one governed stream.
Zymr turned onboarding from a compliance drag into a growth lever. Faster, cleaner starts produced earlier funding, happier clients, and advisors who spent time advising—while auditors saw consistent, traceable control execution.
The result is durable: one portal, one evidence spine, and a governed process that scales across states, custodians, and teams without recreating paperwork debt.
The RIA’s onboarding no longer relied on heroics. Audits became a matter of exporting reports rather than reconstructing email threads, and new clients experienced a first week that matched the firm’s brand promise.
Speed improved because steps were parallelized and automated; quality improved because controls ran consistently. The firm moved from “chasing signatures” to “opening accounts ready to invest.”
These second-order gains kept paying dividends well beyond go-live, simplifying change management and enabling product additions without rewriting the core flow.
What began as “fix onboarding” became an operating backbone: reusable data, predictable controls, cleaner books, and less effort to scale.
Zymr delivered a secure onboarding portal that embedded compliance into the client experience and automated downstream operations.
Baseline Assessment
We mapped every step from introductory call to first trade, listing fields captured, systems touched, decision makers, and evidence required. That blueprint exposed redundant inputs, long approval dwell times, and compliance steps occurring after account creation rather than before.
Unified Data Model & Workflow
We created a canonical onboarding data model (identity, tax, source-of-funds, suitability, disclosures) and a rules-driven workflow engine. Clients entered data once; the portal orchestrated KYC/AML checks, risk acknowledgment, and custodial setup in the right order with no retyping.
KYC/AML Automation
APIs integrated sanctions lists, politically exposed person (PEP) screening, and adverse media checks. Matches triggered configurable review queues; clean results flowed straight to account creation. Each check generated tamper-evident artifacts mapped to client records.
E-Signature & Document Intake
Templates for advisory agreements, Form CRS, and disclosures were embedded. Clients e-signed in-portal; IDs and proof-of-address were captured through secure, encrypted upload with OCR to prefill fields. All artifacts were time-stamped and stored with retention policies.
Custodian & Book-of-Record Integration
Approved applications pushed directly to custodial platforms with status callbacks for funding and ACAT transfers. The portfolio accounting system received client and household metadata automatically, eliminating day-one setup tasks.
Compliance Dashboards & Evidence
Compliance officers monitored pipeline status (awaiting KYC, review in progress, ready to fund). The system generated a complete audit trail—who did what, when, and why—with exportable reports for exams.
Advisor Workspace
Advisors saw a single screen with outstanding items, reminders, and client chat. Automated nudges reduced back-and-forth; canned explanations simplified disclosure steps without legalese.
Security & Privacy
All data used field-level encryption at rest; TLS 1.3 protected data in transit. Role-based access control (RBAC) enforced least privilege across advisors, assistants, and compliance.
The platform replaced scattered tasks with a single, governed flow: capture once, verify automatically, sign securely, and create accounts without rework. Advisors gained time; compliance gained evidence; clients gained clarity.
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