Pinnacle Wealth Management is an investment advisory firm that looks after R2.8 billion of high net-worth clients. Due to the nature of their clients, there is a high touch and personal relationship with each client and so, it comes as no surprise that Pinnacle Wealth pride themselves on offering the best possible hands-on service whilst remaining compliant. Their close-knit team and ability to deliver one holistic solution to their clients, by working with various third-parties, is what sets them apart from industry giants.
We spoke to Richard Vine-Morris, Founder & CEO and Sarah Vine-Morris, Co-Founder at Pinnacle Wealth Management, about their experience with nCino KYC Africa and the benefits the software has provided for their unique business.
Templates and checklists can’t take care of all your needs
Before partnering with nCino KYC Africa, Pinnacle Wealth was using well-defined Excel templates to manage their client onboarding process. Richard explained, “We were using well defined Excel templates but it can’t remind you of deadlines and it can’t track who is editing. Overall this meant we were lacking in governance and control.”
However, to solve this wasn’t going to be an easy quick fix as the business had already perfected their processes and “their way of doing things” and was concerned that trying to implement a new solution or system would mean that they would have to lose or re-think their current processes and procedures that were already mapped out and documented over the years.
As stated by Richard, Pinnacle Wealth already knew they have a responsibility to FICA their clients before they do business with them. Working with a big bank to open accounts, Pinnacle acts as a point of agent for them and the business gets audited every year by the bank, “so we have always had to make sure everything is tight”, Richard added.
Ensuring Pinnacle Wealth Management’s uniqueness remained
By partnering with nCino KYC Africa, Pinnacle Wealth was able to add structure and enhanced simplicity to their compliance processes and procedures.
The flexibility and simplicity of the nCino KYC Africa software was apparent upon implementation, “We had told nCino KYC Africa about our processes and what I really liked was that they were able to look at and understand these processes and then provide suggestions and solutions to our current workflow. It only took us two to three training sessions to get up and running and in the implementation stages, if we had any issues, nCino KYC Africa was able to make changes to the system to accommodate our needs”, Richard elaborated.
In addition to the ease with which Pinnacle were able to integrate nCino KYC Africa into their existing processes, nCino KYC Africa was also able to assist them in enhancing their sanction screening processes. “The software also features a comprehensive screening solution, which was something we also needed as in our last review it was noted that we didn’t have ongoing sanction screening. So I was happy to tell them we now have nCino KYC Africa.”
Looking beyond implementation
At the time of the interview, Pinnacle Wealth had already been a nCino KYC Africa customer for a number of months and so we wanted to find out more about his general day to day experience with nCino KYC Africa. We asked Richard what his favourite nCino KYC Africa feature is, “There’s a lot but funny enough I am always pleased to see our logo coming out on the reports – it looks very professional and is a bit of a proud moment for us to see our logo.”
We also took the opportunity to ask Richard for any advice for someone new in the industry, “They should start using nCino KYC Africa from the beginning and they should start the process early, get integrated and set up a workflow from scratch using nCino KYC Africa. The reason I say this is I think that nCino KYC Africa understands the workflow of what is required and I think that is important to have some sort of a checklist so that you can have a framework to work from. To run it through excel and spreadsheets is not the greatest. Engage early!”
Richard Vine-Morris, CEO & Founder
