Cutting the cost of compliance monitoring in wealth management
At this wealth manager, the compliance team spent over a third of its time on monitoring that was repetitive and poorly prioritised. By clarifying the process first and then automating selectively, the firm can recover about 133,000 CHF per year.
The company
A Swiss wealth manager of 70 people, with a compliance team of 3.
The problem and its cost
Monitoring relied on several extracts from existing tools, handled by hand. Alerts arrived with no order of priority, the same client could be reviewed twice under different controls, and each review file followed the format of whoever wrote it. The team spent most of its week processing and little of it analysing.
The cost is easy to calculate: 3 people × 35 % × 1,760 h × 120 CHF, or about 222,000 CHF per year. The figure does not tell the whole story. This time is not available to support advisers, and the function stays fragile whenever someone is absent, because practices are not documented.
The strategy
We began with a diagnostic of the monitoring, control by control: what is truly required, what is duplicated, what leads to no decision. Only then did we choose what deserved automation. Automating a poorly designed control would only speed up unnecessary work, which is why the process comes before the tools.
We then standardised files and priorities, introduced AI on the document-heavy steps, and finally set up monthly steering through indicators. This order lets the team save time from the first weeks and keeps the investment at around 45,000 CHF.
The execution
Team: A dedicated WALVIS contact, core team skills in operations, data, AI and finance, and a sector expert with a wealth management compliance profile.
- →A map of controls, stating the purpose, owner and frequency of each one, with duplicates removed.
- →An alert prioritisation grid, with thresholds and escalation rules, applied to extracts from the existing tools.
- →Standard review file templates with checklists, so that every case is documented the same way.
- →A monthly dashboard built on the firm's existing tools, showing volumes, processing times and open cases.
AI reads and summarises the supporting documents in client files and pre-sorts incoming alerts by category. Every proposal is validated by a compliance officer, who keeps the decision.
Most of the gain comes from removing duplicate controls, setting clear thresholds and agreeing who decides what. These choices cost little and require no technology.
The result
Expected annual saving: 60% of CHF 222,000, about CHF 133,000. For an investment of about CHF 45,000, payback comes in 4 months.
The rate is 60 % and not 100 % because regulatory judgement, exchanges with advisers and upkeep of the rules remain human work, and only the repetitive handling can be reduced.
- A compliance function with more time to advise the business teams before decisions are made.
- Consistent files that are easier to present during an audit or inspection.
- A function less dependent on individuals, with documented practices that can be handed over.
The assumptions
- Compliance staff: 3 people, 1,760 h per year each.
- Share of time spent on monitoring: 35 %.
- Loaded hourly cost: 120 CHF.
- One-off investment of about 45,000 CHF, repaid in roughly 4 months.
Scenario type, built from real missions and anonymized.
In the same cocoon
