Skymantle, Broadridge and AWS Help Dealers Meet Compliance Obligations
case study
In 2021, new rules required Canadian investment dealers to provide product comparisons for financial products they recommend to clients. Broadridge Financial Solutions wanted to create a compliance tool to help clients comply with the new rules.
The company worked with Skymantle Technologies to develop the tool. Skymantle delivered a working product in just 6-8 weeks using AWS serverless architecture. Deploying on AWS accelerated development, provided capacity, data security, and optimized costs.
about Broadridge
For nearly six decades, Broadridge has been providing critical infrastructure that powers corporate governance, capital markets and wealth, as well as investment management.
the challenge: addressing an urgent compliance challenge in finance
When the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) announced new “Know Your Product” (KYP) rules for investment dealers, Broadridge Financial Solutions saw an opportunity to serve its clients better. The financial technology company is a global leader in capital markets and wealth and is Canada's leading technology provider to investment dealers. One of the company’s ongoing challenges is being responsive to dealer needs. That includes helping them stay compliant with constant regulatory change.
The KYP rules are part of a larger program of Client-Focused Reforms designed to protect customer interests in investment transactions. Investment dealers must compare, understand, and provide transparency around the financial products they recommend and sell to clients. Investment dealers felt increasing pressure to acquire new compliance functionality before the rules entered into force on December 31, 2021.
In spring 2021, industry expectations on KYP comparisons of stocks, bonds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) changed. Clients asked Broadridge to build a compliance tool to perform and audit these activities. Based on timelines, market needs and opportunity costs with projects in flight, Broadridge chose to look to the Canadian FinTech community for a solution.
the solution
Scott Wilkinson, Head of Canada Wealth Business Development, with other Broadridge leaders spoke with several vendors before meeting Raymond Dong and Artin Yong-Bannayan, Co-Founders of Skymantle Technologies, an AWS Partner. Wilkinson was impressed with their knowledge of Canadian investment data, data management skills, and collaborative approach.
the results
By June, the two companies had an agreement in place. By the time the legislation came into force, they had a fully operational product.
“Working with serverless technology allowed us to respond quickly to feedback and complete the product in a very short period of time.”
Raymond Dong
Co-Founder, Managing Director
Skymantle
“Working with serverless technology allowed us to respond quickly to feedback and complete the product in a very short period of time.”
Raymond Dong
Co-Founder, Managing Director
Skymantle
iterating fast for performance, data privacy and UX
Skymantle had an existing API-driven data platform for KYP; however, to learn what dealers needed to meet compliance obligations and ensure advisors used the tool, Skymantle had to work closely with an end customer. Broadridge identified Aviso Wealth, a Vancouver-based financial services company with a network of 2500 investment dealers, as the ideal candidate.
Skymantle worked closely with Aviso to develop success criteria. The product comparison tool needed to be low-touch, automated, and deliver a user experience that minimized administrative drag for the advisors.
Privacy, performance, and cost were also critical. Each dealer would need its system hosted separately, with no crossover of financial data. To stay stable, the solution needed robust, ongoing service infrastructure support. For the tool to serve Broadridge’s needs and compete in the demanding B2B financial market, it needed to fulfil its function consistently without being overly expensive for clients.
Skymantle built the solution entirely on AWS Managed Services using serverless technology. That architecture supported rapid experimentation at minimal cost. “Working with serverless technology allowed us to respond quickly to feedback and complete the product in a very short period of time,” said Dong. Remarkably, built the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) in under two months.
“Skymantle can deliver a bespoke solution to a dealer of moderate size in 3-4 weeks that satisfies customer needs, which speaks volumes about the underlying technology and the solution they’ve built.”
Scott Wilkinson
Canada Wealth Business Development
Broadridge
“Skymantle can deliver a bespoke solution to a dealer of moderate size in 3-4 weeks that satisfies customer needs, which speaks volumes about the underlying technology and the solution they’ve built.”
Scott Wilkinson
Canada Wealth Business Development
Broadridge
a lightweight compliance tool that works
AWS serverless architecture provided the necessary resiliency, scalability, and performance with less development workload. “We didn't have to deal with spinning up traditional infrastructure, systems and data stores,” said Yong-Bannayan, “allowing us to focus on collaborating with Broadridge and Aviso to deliver the MVP.”
To support the tight timeline, evolving client needs, and clients of varying sizes, a solution was architected using the following AWS services: Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon CloudFront and AWS Step Functions.
Furthermore, by creating individual AWS accounts for each client in the Canadian region, the solution met the data security isolation requirements of Canadian dealers.
On-demand pricing of managed services kept the system agile, inexpensive, and scalable during high-capacity periods, such as RSP season, with the additional benefit of supporting smaller clients.
onboarding clients faster is part of the solution
Production iterations brought Skymantle from an API product to a fully fleshed-out, mature product in a matter of months. Since then, Broadridge has signed up ten additional dealers and about 10,000 advisors have access to the solution. Broadridge plans to integrate the product and features into its client communications platform.
The solution significantly raised the benchmark for onboarding speed at Broadridge, a process that can involve catering to various dealer front office technologies and Single Sign-On (SSO) requirements. “Skymantle can deliver a bespoke solution to a dealer of moderate size in 3-4 weeks that satisfies customer needs,” says Wilkinson, “which speaks volumes about the underlying technology and the solution they’ve built.”
a model for fintech partnerships
For Skymantle and Broadridge, deploying on AWS created a mutually advantageous collaborative model between large enterprises and smaller fintech companies. Broadridge plans to pursue more opportunities to leverage Skymantle’s capacity to create compelling products on AWS that benefit investment dealers and investors.
“AWS Cloud technology has been critical to the productivity, capacity and national service capacity of what we're able to offer,” said Wilkinson. “If we’d used legacy software development tools, hosting and service functions, we could never have delivered the product on time and on budget and met all the success criteria.”
“The collaboration has been great for both companies and drives a better product for customers and the industry,” said Dong. “It’s a win across the board.”
