Digital onboarding for EAM and HNWI clients
User-friendly and intuitive solution which enables a range of External Asset Managers (EAM) to onboard clients to a third party/custodian bank faster while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Project details and story
- Industry
- Finance, Wealth Management
- Solution
- Customer validation
- Design
- Product design sprint
- Year
- 2020
Challenges
Manually onboarding EAM clients into the bank was a complex, paper-based, time-consuming process.
Windmill was asked to help streamline the onboarding process and make it faster. That would enable them to improve their value proposition and deliver a better customer experience, thereby increasing their customer base, assets under management, and revenues.
Approach
We combined desk-based research with a hands-on Design Sprint for solving problems through designing, prototyping, and testing ideas with users.
Through a range of exercises involving representatives of the bank and several EAMs, the team understood the existing actors, systems, workflows and problems and built out a vision for the new product.

Solution
The digital onboarding solution was designed as a flexible application that allowed EAMs to:
- Capture client data
- Print client documents for reviews and reports
- Submit completed applications directly to the bank
- Transparently monitor the progress of applications
The application was developed to align with the existing bank design standards. Acknowledging the importance of making it easy to comply with all prevailing rules and regulations, the solution provided automated workflows across KYC/AML and legal profiling.
Application status
Deep dive into open onboarding forms, already submitted, or start a new application.
Automated workflow
Fast and secure. Allow EAMs to view status and progress. Add users and assistants. Check all "to do" tasks, view recent activities and who has done what. View the list of required documents, upload them, and also provide answers to KYC questionnaires online.
Smooth collaboration between Bank and EAM
Allow the bank to pre-check clients, comment on KYC forms, assist in completing documents, and view the status and progress of applications.

Impact
Our solution created significant engagement in the community. That was another successful step along the digital enablement journey for the bank:
- A highly simplified, quicker onboarding process
- Quicker responses to customer queries
- Greater transparency about the application status and missing elements for all the participants
- Greater support for the EAM from the bank


