For Advisor Platform, Pershing Crunches Big Data Into Friendlier Size

Nagappan’s big focus these days is an update of NetXInvestor, the end-user application that lets advisors and their clients exchange information on Pershing’s NetX360 platform for investment professionals and RIAs. NetXInvestor is now being tested in a beta pre-release and is scheduled to be formally launched in January.

As Pershing prepares for NetXInvestor to go live, it’s receiving the same R&D treatment that NetX360 for professionals gets: namely, the creation of “personas” that drive product design and help Pershing’s developers better understand their customers and individualize their user experience.

About five years ago, Pershing’s User Experience (UX) Group created nine personas based on nine different types of professionals who use NetX360. In the course of that creation, the group interviewed and observed several hundred individuals about their experience with the platform. To keep up with industry changes, the UX Group also has formed three advisory boards of about 10 users each, who meet on a quarterly basis to share their experiences on the platform.

The UX Group has invented a name for each persona along with a visual image and a job description. They’ve also printed up posters and a deck of cards that outline the professional lives of the nine personas, who range from advisors to administrators to compliance officers, to remind Pershing’s UX Group about who their customers really are.

‘What Would Walter Do?’

For example, after interviewing approximately 50 RIAs with more than 10 years of experience, the group created a fictional wealth manager named Walter Steward, an RIA who describes himself as his clients’ “financial quarterback.”

“I look to establish myself as my client’s trusted advisor both financially and beyond,” Walter says in a text block that summarizes his tech needs and goals. “My fiduciary responsibilities and independence from a broker-dealer give me a broad canvas on which I can create the right picture for each client.”

Michael Maternaghan, manager of the UX Group, says that the personas have become so real to NetX360’s designers that they’ve become “subliminally implanted” on people’s minds as they work on platform upgrades.

“We talk about Walt as if he were a real person,” Maternaghan says. “’What would Walter do?’ That’s the slogan for the persona campaign.”

Now, Pershing is bringing personas to its development of the NetXInvestor user experience. Ramiya Ramanathan, a UX designer, said the group has studied market research on user trends while tracking the behaviors, wants, needs and devices of both professionals and investors who will share data via NetXInvestor.

“We want to instill delight in our customers’ lives and simplify their day,” Ramanathan says, adding that NetXInvestor’s developers are working to make the platform feel both personal and seamless across devices, from PCs to tablets to smartphones. “Starbucks will give you a cup of coffee exactly as you want it. This is what we’re trying to do with the user experience.”