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Specialized Financial Services

Equinox Consulting delivers proven expertise in specialized financial services. We provide industry professionals with support during their projects and serve as a catalyst for new ideas.

The financial services industry has been shaped by two trends: business specialization and market consolidation

The specialized financial services include a variety of different businesses:

• Equipment financing (loans for commercial equipment and vehicle fleets, consumer loans, and long-term leases)
• Real estate financing (commercial property leases and home loans)
• Investment services (factoring and brokerage services)

The specialized financial services are driven as much by the financial services branches of non-specialized banks as by other market players such as the financing subsidiaries of large retail groups, automobile financing divisions, and online brokerage services. Overall, the industry has been shaped by two trends: business specialization and market consolidation.

Today, specialized financial service providers must meet several challenges inherent to their niche positioning, such as:

• Boosting productivity through standardized processes and shared resources
• Building partnerships
• Expanding internationally and identifying acquisition opportunities
• Increasing revenue and offering innovative products and services

Helping clients manage change, spur innovation, and make the necessary processes and IT systems updates

Decision-making assistance on strategy issues

• Medium-term strategy planning
• Business consolidation and partnerships
• Outsourcing and outsourcer selection

Sales and marketing activities

• Innovation, new product and service development, and new target customer segment identification
• Online strategies
• Sales force coaching and performance improvement

Organizational change

• New organizational structures for partnerships or existing businesses
• Division mergers and business consolidation
• Back-office operations improvements
• Business process overhauls and optimization (CRM, risk management, receivables collection, provisions, etc.)

IT system alignment

• IT master plans
• Business application selection and rollout (credit chain, accounting, EDM, CTI, CRM, etc.)
• IT resource pooling

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Sample project

Preliminary study to set up a European-wide platform for a consumer credit institution

As part of an international expansion strategy, a consumer credit institution wanted to set up a services hub encompassing its IT system and the related outsourced services (e.g., system maintenance and collection activities). The goal was to build a centralized platform that would facilitate the company’s move into new countries.

Equinox Consulting was brought in to assess the feasibility of this major change. We used the following three-step process:

• Review the international expansion models of seven other institutions in order to identify best practices for IT system consolidation, and benchmark the company against these practices. This allowed our consultants to determine the main guidelines for the future centralized platform.
• Send out a request for proposals (RFP) to four service providers, and work with the selected bidder to determine the scope of outsourced services and most suitable software. This involved shared efforts from the company and two subsidiaries chosen for the test phase.
• Simulate the model over the entire company, in order to assess the project’s impact.

Our consultants then scaled the project up to the full scope of outsourced services, and addressed practical considerations for the rollout. This gave the company the opportunity to fine-tune the approach and clarify the conditions and deadlines for the new platform.