State Street and Appian partner to streamline account opening

State Street has improved custody account opening times after investing in a new system, built with platform specialists Appian.

Addressing delegates at this year’s Sibos in Toronto, the custodian bank revealed how it had responded to client demands by investing in automating and standardising processes, improving transparency, and digitalising datasets.

“Through Appian we have created a smart logic platform,” said Suren Sankar, managing director, global custody product at State Street (pictured).

“There were some challenges around custody account opening… which meant accounts could take weeks to open. We knew it was a big problem and it was something that we had to do something about.”

Sankar said Appian was chosen after “an extensive search” of platform providers. Appian combined customisation with out-of-the-box functionality, which appealed to the Boston-based banking giant. State Street developed a dedicated support team, within the business at the same time, to facilitate the change.

Sankar gave an honest assessment of the challenges of managing organisational change as a new platform gets developed, but said there are plenty of learning opportunities for future projects.

“We encountered some resistance to change had to do a lot of internal PR to get folks on board,” he said. “As people got used to it, they started to see the user experience that we promised.

“The key is having a good product and listening to the needs of the clients and internal users. The platform sold itself once we were able to deliver that functionality.”

In the same seminar, Michael Heffner, vice president, software solutions at Appian, added: “We focus on innovating around new business models. There is a lot that can be learnt from the State Street journey.”