Customer Case Study: Financial Services Firm Accelerates Digital Transformation with the Informat Platform
Financial services organizations face a uniquely challenging environment for digital transformation: intense regulatory scrutiny, complex legacy systems that have accumulated over decades, high customer expectations set by digital-native fintech competitors, and zero tolerance for errors or downtime when money is involved. This case study examines how a mid-size wealth management and advisory firm — referred to here as "Heritage Financial Partners" (HFP) — successfully navigated these challenges using the Informat low-code platform to modernize client-facing processes, streamline internal operations, and maintain rigorous compliance standards throughout the transformation.
HFP, with approximately 600 employees managing $12 billion in client assets across 12 offices, faced a common mid-size financial services dilemma. The firm's core wealth management platform was solid but rigid — it reliably handled portfolio management, trading, and reporting but provided almost no flexibility for the client service workflows, compliance processes, and operational automation that differentiated HFP's service model. Custom development on the core platform was expensive, slow, and constrained by the vendor's roadmap. Off-the-shelf solutions for specific needs (client onboarding, compliance tracking, document management) created data silos and integration headaches. And the firm's IT team of 15 was fully consumed maintaining existing systems, with no capacity for innovation projects. HFP needed a way to build the custom applications that supported its differentiated service model without the cost, time, and complexity of traditional custom development — and without compromising the security and compliance standards that were non-negotiable in financial services.
The Challenge: High-Touch Service Hampered by Manual Processes
Despite its reputation for exceptional client service, HFP's operations were heavily dependent on manual processes, email, and spreadsheets for the activities that surrounded the core wealth management platform. Client onboarding — from initial prospect contact to fully operational accounts — involved 14 separate steps across 5 systems, took an average of 18 business days, and required clients to provide the same information multiple times to different teams. The process was error-prone, with incomplete or inconsistent client data causing downstream problems in compliance reviews, account setup, and reporting. Compliance monitoring — ensuring that client portfolios adhered to investment policy statements, regulatory requirements, and internal guidelines — was performed through periodic manual reviews that sampled transactions rather than monitoring continuously. The compliance team of 8 people was overwhelmed, and the sampling-based approach created risk that violations could go undetected for weeks or months. Client reporting — performance reports, fee statements, tax documents — was assembled manually each quarter by a team of 4 people working for 3 weeks, a process that was both expensive and prone to errors that damaged client trust.
The business impact was clear: slow onboarding created a poor first impression that undermined HFP's premium brand positioning; compliance risk was managed reactively rather than prevented proactively; and operational costs consumed resources that could otherwise be invested in client service and business development. The CEO summarized the challenge: "We were delivering 19th-century operations wrapped in 21st-century client relationships. Our clients loved their advisors but were increasingly frustrated by our processes."
The Solution: Phased Transformation on the Informat Platform
HFP selected the Informat low-code platform after evaluating several alternatives. The decision was driven by Informat's combination of enterprise-grade security and compliance features (SOC 2, data encryption, audit logging, role-based access control, environment separation) with the rapid development capability that HFP's small IT team needed. Rather than a big-bang transformation, HFP adopted a phased approach, addressing the highest-pain, highest-value processes first and building momentum for broader change.
Phase 1 — Client Onboarding Transformation (10 weeks): The onboarding process was completely redesigned and digitized on the Informat platform. The new application provided: a digital client portal where prospects could submit information, upload documents, and track application status; automated workflows that routed tasks to the appropriate teams (compliance, operations, advisory) with SLA tracking and escalation; integration with the core wealth management platform via APIs, eliminating duplicate data entry; automated compliance checks (KYC, AML, suitability) that ran in real time rather than as a separate review step; and dashboards showing onboarding pipeline, cycle times, and bottlenecks for management visibility. The results were dramatic: average onboarding time dropped from 18 business days to 4 days; data errors decreased by 85%; and the Net Promoter Score for the onboarding experience improved from 32 to 68. The compliance team, initially skeptical, became strong advocates when they saw that automated checks caught issues earlier and more consistently than manual reviews.
Phase 2 — Continuous Compliance Monitoring (8 weeks): Building on the momentum from Phase 1, HFP addressed compliance monitoring. The new application, built on Informat, continuously monitored all transactions against client investment policy statements, regulatory requirements, and internal guidelines — flagging potential violations in real time rather than discovering them at the next quarterly review. Automated workflows routed flagged items to compliance officers with full context, tracked resolution, and maintained a complete audit trail. The compliance team's capacity was effectively doubled — they could monitor 100% of transactions continuously rather than sampling 20% periodically — and the time to detect and resolve potential violations dropped from weeks to hours. Regulators responded positively during the next examination, noting the comprehensive, real-time monitoring as a leading practice.
Phase 3 — Client Reporting and Communications (6 weeks): The third phase transformed client reporting from a manual, quarterly fire-drill into an automated, on-demand capability. The new application, integrated with the core platform and the Informat-built client portal, generated client reports automatically from verified data, enabled clients to access reports on demand through the portal, and allowed advisors to customize report content and frequency for each client. The 4-person, 3-week quarterly reporting process was reduced to automated generation with one person reviewing exceptions. More importantly, client satisfaction with reporting improved significantly, and advisors reported spending less time explaining reports and more time discussing strategy.
| Metric | Before Informat | After Informat | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Client Onboarding Time | 18 business days | 4 business days | 78% reduction |
| Onboarding NPS | 32 | 68 | 113% improvement |
| Compliance Monitoring Coverage | 20% sample, quarterly | 100% continuous | Full coverage, real-time |
| Violation Detection Time | Weeks (until next review) | Hours (real-time alert) | 95%+ reduction |
| Reporting Process Time | 3 weeks, 4 people | Automated, 1 person review | 90%+ reduction |
| IT Innovation vs. Maintenance | 15/85 split | 55/45 split | Reversed innovation deficit |
Key Success Factors
Several deliberate choices drove HFP's success. Phased, value-driven approach — each phase was scoped to deliver measurable business value within 6-10 weeks, maintaining momentum and stakeholder confidence. No phase required more than 3 people from HFP's IT team, supplemented by business subject matter experts. Compliance-first design — rather than treating compliance as an afterthought or a constraint, HFP involved the compliance team from day one of each phase design, ensuring regulatory requirements were built into applications rather than retrofitted. This not only produced better compliance outcomes but turned compliance from a potential blocker into an active champion of the transformation. Integration with core systems, not replacement — HFP did not attempt to replace its core wealth management platform, recognizing that would be a multi-year, multi-million-dollar project with existential risk. Instead, Informat applications surrounded and extended the core platform, providing the flexibility and custom workflows the business needed while the core platform continued to do what it did well (portfolio management, trading, market data). Investment in change management — every deployment included role-specific training, floor-walking support during the transition, and a structured feedback mechanism. The CEO personally championed each phase, reinforcing that digital transformation was a strategic priority, not an IT project.
"The Informat platform gave us the ability to build exactly the applications our clients and advisors needed, with the security and compliance our regulators demanded, at a speed our business required. We didn't have to choose between innovation and safety — we got both." — Chief Technology Officer, Heritage Financial Partners
Lessons for Financial Services Organizations
HFP's experience offers transferable lessons for other financial services organizations. Start with processes that touch clients directly — improvements that clients experience (faster onboarding, better reporting, more responsive service) generate immediate business value and build organizational support for continued investment. Involve compliance and risk teams as partners, not obstacles — early, genuine engagement with compliance turns potential blockers into champions and produces better compliance outcomes. Surround and extend legacy systems, don't try to replace them — low-code platforms are ideally suited for building the modern processes, client experiences, and operational automation that legacy core systems lack, without the risk and cost of core system replacement. Move in phases, prove value at each step — the credibility and momentum from successful early phases are more valuable than the theoretical perfection of a comprehensive, multi-year transformation plan. And invest in data integration early — the value of every application depends on its ability to access and share data with the core systems and other applications in the ecosystem. HFP invested significantly in API integration during Phase 1, and that investment paid off in every subsequent phase.
Conclusion
Heritage Financial Partners' transformation with the Informat platform demonstrates that meaningful digital transformation is achievable for mid-size financial services organizations — without the cost, time, and risk of large-scale custom development or core system replacement. By taking a phased, value-driven approach; involving compliance as a partner; surrounding and extending legacy systems rather than replacing them; and investing in change management and data integration, HFP achieved dramatic improvements in client experience, operational efficiency, and compliance effectiveness. Eighteen months into their transformation, HFP has not just better software — they have a fundamentally more agile, client-centric, and data-driven organization, positioned to compete effectively in an industry where digital experience is increasingly the basis of competitive differentiation.