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Columbia Threadneedle Investments: FinTech 2020 Startup Challenges 

Jay-leopold-fintech

Columbia Threadneedle is excited to be a Challenge Partner for the 2020 FinTech program. Columbia Threadneedle is a leading global asset manager, managing nearly $470 billion for institutional and retail clients. We’re based in Boston with more than 2,000 people, including over 450 investment professionals, operating in 17 countries around the world. Our parent company, Ameriprise, is a financial services industry leader with a $16+ billion market cap and 13,000 employees around the world, including 10,000 financial advisors in the U.S.

Our clients and distribution partners include large public and private pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, leading national, regional and independent banks and wealth managers, high-net-worth individuals and retail investors.

Our team includes investors and research analysts who manage money on behalf of our clients; sales, client service and relationship management professionals who work with our clients, financial advisors and intermediaries; product specialists; marketers who create compelling content to help explain and distribute our investment solutions; advisors that help their clients meet their goals, as well technology, operations, legal and compliance staff who provide critical support that underlies every aspect of our business. All use technology and data in vital and different ways.

We have a passion to deliver excellent investment results for our clients. We are united by a culture that values collaboration and the free flow of ideas, information and insight.

Hear Columbia Threadneedles 2020 challenges:

WHY WE’VE PARTNERED WITH MASSCHALLENGE FINTECH:

The best and most innovative uses of technology and data are vital for the success and growth of our business. Our industry is being transformed by increased regulation, greater demand for transparency into how our products perform and are priced, and the digitization of the sales process and customer experience.

All these forces present us with challenges and opportunities. We are responding with innovative new ways to package and deliver investment solutions; harnessing data to improve how we identify and engage with the highest value prospects; and engaging with investors and advisors in new and creative digital ways.

Our broad range of investment solutions are designed to meet the evolving needs of our clients, whether they are individuals, financial advisors or institutions. We are committed to making the best and most innovative uses of technology and data to ensure we continue providing our clients with first-class service and investment excellence.

OUR CHALLENGES:

We believe collaborating with the FinTech community through the Challenge Partnership will provide us with fresh perspectives on how we do business and how we can further innovate and evolve our uses of technology and data.

We seek to partner with the FinTech Community to better utilize new technologies that include, but aren’t limited to, business intelligence, advanced analytics, AI, natural language processing and machine learning to more innovatively and efficiently collect, organize, store and analyze data to drive better business insights.  We seek to improve our data environment and platforms to more efficiently and effectively manage our growing data needs for our firm.

We approach this work in four broad areas: distribution, investments, wealth management and advice, and regulatory oversight.

1) To modernize and evolve the way we distribute our products, we want to be a trusted provider to financial advisors by using data in new and better ways to enhance their overall experience with us.

2) To help clients meet their investment objectives, we seek to collaborate with the FinTech community to construct portfolios and solutions to meet client needs and create differentiated insights for more effective investment decisions, and help advisors work better with their clients to meet their goals.

3) We are doubling down on research as we believe that increasingly effective investment research will help us find and drive excess return into our portfolios.  We are interested in tools that ease the collection of data so that our research team can spend more time analyzing the data.

4) Finally, we want to utilize new technologies to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of important oversight functions for regulatory and other purposes that increase our flexibility, speed to market and supports our commitment to strong compliance oversight.

HOW WILL WE HELP STARTUPS GROW THEIR BUSINESSES?

Why Columbia Threadneedle?  As a global leader in the asset management industry, we are committed to being best-in-class and intend to partner with the right FinTech companies to improve upon our already strong efforts to modernize, digitize and support our growth over the next decade and beyond.

During the Challenge we will explore opportunities to leverage work across both the Columbia Threadneedle and Ameriprise platforms, which could increase the addressable market opportunity for our FinTech partners.

Our experience, passion to innovate, client focus, and strong desire to co-learn make us an ideal partner for start-ups seeking new use cases and insights into the asset management industry.  Our Boston-based leadership team can offer you guidance and support as you work on our Challenge, as well as valuable experience interacting with a global financial leader.

Hear other FinTech Partner Challenges Here!

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