Asset Management Marketing Focus #16

Kurtosys expresses their best wishes to all starting in their new positions.

Website Spotlight: Winton

Winton is an investment manager whose strategies are based on quantitative data analysis and scientific research. When naysayers claim that science and the arts can’t mix, they can eat their words when looking at Winton’s beautifully designed website.

Carousel-formatted banner images and text are a clear design trend for asset management websites, with Winton’s custom imagery being not only exemplary but excelling in photograph quality.  Including a circuit board style graphic to exemplify their excellent content on AI in financial services, and a more abstract Picasso-esque stained glass window image, they grab page visitors to read their Deep Learning and Data Science features. The attractive images, neatly laid out on Winton’s homepage are effective links to their thorough research, industry insights, media items and views from the company’s CEO.

Another noteworthy section of the site is the consistent implementation of Winton’s social media channels (including, rather unusually, Github) across each sub-page. In particular, their choice of YouTube video to outline their specifically scientific investment approach is great, and a video that has been duly embedded into the ‘Approach’ page, found on the fully responsive top toolbar.

Winton, as is a necessity for our top investment management websites, features a page dedicated to the presentation of their UCITS funds. Whilst the pieces of fund literature on offer are abundant and each well designed in their own right, these fund pages may benefit from more vivid design features such as interactive graphs, equal amounts of pictures and text and search-ahead functionality and drop down lists.

However, one example of this interactivity can be found in the mightily impressive (yet somewhat hidden) ‘Future Tool’, which simulates the future of returns of a portfolio of investment strategies for investors to play around with, featuring embedded tutorials.
That being said, the main automated images and calls-to-action on the site look just as wonderful on mobile, earning it a place in our updated 50 Best-Designed Asset Management Websites gallery!

Fund in Focus: TOBAM Bitcoin Fund

Here’s yet another fund first here at AMMF, displaying 2017 as a landmark year for daring fund launch activity. French asset manager TOBAM has grabbed the cryptocurrency hype by the scruff of the neck, packaging a Bitcoin Fund as a mutual fund in a bid to attract more traditional investors to the risky, unregulated commodity that is bitcoin.

This is the first bitcoin mutual fund to be launched in Europe. In recent times, the price of bitcoin has increased to over 5000% against the dollar, with interest in the digital currency from investors also spiking. TOBAM’s president Yves Choueifaty states that the intent of the asset manager to be innovative and ahead-of-the-pack is exemplified in this move, and optimistically states TOBAM is expecting the fund to grow to $400 million in the next few years. The fund will be open to institutional and qualified investors on a private placement basis.

TOBAM’s in-house cryptocurrency research and development team may back up their confidence in bitcoin’s potential to provide “durable standards in financial and saving markets.” It’s a launch which may kick-start other mutual funds in the cryptocurrency space, an area which asset managers and investors will likely continue to monitor over the next few years to come.

Further information: TOBAM | Coindesk | Business Insider

GDPR News

As we continue down the Yellow Brick Road to meet the less friendly wizard of GDPR in May 2018, Bluprint Global have asked their vlog audience what they want to know about most, and GDPR comes out on top as, seemingly, the biggest disruptive force for marketers. The result is a packed half-hour discussion between Bluprint CEO Lee Hackett and Colin Day from FIS, all about the ‘transformation of consent management’, which we promise is an informative, practical guide on how to succeed in compliance once you get past the Dubstep-soundtracked introduction.

Industry Insights & Reports

Peregrine

In what is one of the most accurately named reports (using phenomenal wordplay), marketing communication firm Peregrine has compiled a study into how digitally-equipped 100 asset managers in the US and the UK are in their web presence and content marketing. Here is Online But Off-Message?.

As outlined on this accompanying landing page, Peregrine posed 10 questions (/hypotheses) going into the study, mainly about how a manager’s size predicts their marketing success, what different content they are using to promote themselves online, and how consistent asset managers are across all platforms, from websites to social media.

This all culminates in a 100-strong ranking table at the report’s end, determining which asset managers are more than competent in their digital efforts or still struggling in the ever more competitive landscape. A league table that’s well worth checking alongside your Fantasy Football progress; please don’t ask me about mine.

Capgemini

A little more gargantuan, Capgemini has released an amalgam of 2017 reports covering Payments, Retail Banking, Insurance and – most notably for fervent asset managers – the World Wealth Report 2017.

The attached is pretty champion for landing page aficionados, featuring an interactive world map to highlight regional wealth statistics, which link to further graphs, alongside the report’s special features including a gallery of its main findings, an extensive and illustrative infographic, and a download link to the main report.

Oh, and there’s an archive of the 2016 reports for all your cross-referencing and comparable needs. It’s meaty, so best to get started now!

KPMG
You can always count on some hefty research efforts from the so-called ‘big four’ accounting firms, and for the fintech world, no reports come more eagerly awaited than KPMG’s annual globe-trotting roundup of the top 100 fintech startups today.
Giving a ranked top 50, and a further 50 to very much keep an eye on for future editions, the report highlights their geographic location, synopsis of their aims, founders, founding years, websites, investors and even their tag-lines to build a full picture of the incredible companies that are changing the face of the financial industry as we know it. Whether you are a supporter or a shunner of disruptors, it’s best to know exactly who they are and what they’re doing. There aren’t many resources you’ll need bookmarked more than this.

Webinar: Akamai’s State of the Internet/Security Report – Q3 2017 Findings

Different slightly from our usual AMMF regular feature of events to visit, this time we present a webinar courtesy of cybersecurity experts Akamai which you can join from the comfort of your office, armchair, bed, or café.

As the threat level to applications and infrastructure increases, the security needed to combat attacks is in a state of constant reinvention. Hence, this Q3 roundup from Akamai addresses all of the recent DDoS and web application attack trends from the tail end of this year, and what we can expect to see going into the new year.

The webinar takes place on Tuesday December 5^th, and you can sign up via the landing page right here.

And finally…

…the run-up to December in the marketing spaces of all industries bring with it articles either looking forward to the upcoming year, or a retrospect of what we have seen and experienced in the past twelve months.

Financial Services Marketing, for instance, has gone for the latter in a roundup of how financial institutions have reacted to events in media relations, and how it has been reflected in their marketing efforts.

This article notes, most notably, the change of presidency at the start of 2017 and an era of more apparent ‘fake news’, Twitter as a successful outlet for news, and a more obvious link between politics and its effect on economic markets worldwide. These are reflections that can determine shifting strategies for financial marketers, so is well worth a look.

Elsewhere, ending on either a good, bad, or ugly note (I guess it depends on what order you flick through the following), it’s time to face the music as WealthManagement.com has provided a slideshow featuring the opinions of investors on their advisors. Even if some of the more critical views may be tough to stomach, “honesty is the policy”.

That’s all for this week, but be sure to check back soon for more asset management marketing highlights and fintech snippets from Kurtosys.