Managing investment product universes has long been a complex and manual task for wealth and asset managers. From tracking fund availability across platforms to managing rebates, model portfolios, and transparency requirements, the administrative workload is often heavy and prone to errors. Much of this process still relies on outdated spreadsheets and disjointed interfaces, making consistency and accuracy difficult to maintain.
Kidbrooke has introduced a modern solution to address these persistent challenges. Its Product Universe solution, a core component of the KidbrookeONE ecosystem, brings automation and organisation to product universe management, an area of wealth management overdue for technological innovation.
For many wealth management firms, particularly those involved in occupational pensions or platform-based investment products, managing multiple fund providers and insurance platforms means handling numerous product universes simultaneously. These universes are often tailored to different client groups or contractual terms. Without proper systems, manually coordinating data across these varied platforms invites the risk of inconsistency and human error.
A major problem stems from fragmented and manual data uploads. Insurers typically rely on poorly designed interfaces to upload product universe data, resulting in inconsistent formats. Intermediaries must then consolidate these varied datasets, a process that becomes cumbersome without effective API integrations and introduces significant operational risks, it said.
Errors in fee and rebate data entry can also have serious consequences. A small mistake—such as inputting a 1.5% fee instead of 1%—can not only damage client trust but also jeopardise regulatory compliance. The complexity is further heightened when insurers offer varied rebate structures depending on their distribution agreements.
Version control is another critical issue. Without a unified system, firms risk duplicating information, missing updates, or offering incomplete product selections to clients. This lack of oversight affects both internal processes and client experiences.
Kidbrooke’s Product Universe solution directly addresses these issues. Designed to simplify and centralise workflows, it offers both a user-friendly interface and seamless API integration, catering to firms that wish to automate processes without heavy development resources. The system supports both low-code and fully integrated deployments, enabling insurers, intermediaries, and asset managers to streamline uploads, enhance data transparency, and maintain consistent product offerings.
The solution allows users to consolidate multiple platforms into a single dashboard, simplifying the management of product universes from various fund providers. Excel uploads are made easier with a batch upload system that validates entries, highlights errors, and ensures data cleanliness before integration.
Users can configure fees and rebates at the fund level, reflecting negotiated terms and reducing costly input errors. The solution accommodates platform-specific or client-segment-specific fees, improving both operational transparency and regulatory compliance.
Model portfolio management is also streamlined. Advisors can create and manage model portfolios tied to specific insurance companies or product sets, ensuring clients only see portfolios available to them.
In addition, the solution supports sustainability and ESG data integration. Firms can upload sustainability scores and carbon footprint metrics via Excel or manage them directly within the interface. Allowing insurers and fund providers to maintain this data themselves further reduces administrative dependencies.
The solution has already demonstrated its real-world effectiveness. Max Matthiessen, a leading pension advisory platform in the Nordics, is one of the firms that has benefited from the tool. Before adopting Kidbrooke’s Product Universe solution, Max Matthiessen faced cumbersome and error-prone manual data processes involving multiple insurance providers and contract-specific product universes Kidbrooke explained. The platform has now significantly streamlined its operations, validating data instantly, managing multiple universes with ease, and ensuring accurate fee application and portfolio consistency.
Max Matthiessen said, “Yes, the implementation of Kidbrooke’s solution has significantly improved the way we work with model portfolios and the management of product universes. What used to be a labor-intensive, complex, and manual process reliant on difficult Excel updates has now been replaced by a modern, user-friendly, and automated system. This has also allowed us to eliminate key person dependencies in the process, which previously posed a risk.
“Kidbrooke’s solution has enabled us to work in a more structured, secure, and scalable way. It’s an important step in our digitalisation journey and a solution that adds value both in our daily operations and in our strategic development going forward.”
Looking ahead, Kidbrooke envisions allowing insurers and fund providers direct access to manage their own entries in real time, further reducing duplication and streamlining updates across the value chain.
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