Salesforce Financial Services Cloud is a tool built on the top CRM platform worldwide. It helps financial institutions earn trust by making sure customers have a consistent experience no matter where or how they interact. It’s designed specifically for finance, using features from Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. This helps finance companies work better, get results faster, and build stronger trust with customers every time they connect.
Salesforce has handled the complex work. Salesforce users receive tools that allow them to concentrate on important customer interactions rather than mundane tasks. As an administrator, you benefit from the reliable power, security, and scalability of the Salesforce platform, customized to simplify setup for financial institutions.
Begin with a trial organization for Financial Services Cloud. Alternatively, install the managed package for Financial Services Cloud along with the unmanaged extension package. Connect data from your banking, portfolio management, financial planning, and other systems. Then, customize the application to fit the preferences of your users.
Where can we use financial Services Cloud ?
Retail Banking
With Financial Services Cloud for Retail Banking, bankers, loan officers, tellers, and operations associates can see everything about their customers in one place. This includes their customer profile, what they’re interested in, their life goals, important events, and all their financial accounts.
Wealth Management
Financial advisors can use the Wealth Management Lightning app to see everything about their clients and provide the customized, proactive service their clients want. Advisors can strengthen client relationships, tailor interactions, and work more efficiently to expand their reach and grow their business.
Insurance
The Insurance Agent Console app helps agents and service representatives keep track of how well they’re doing and stay on target with their goals. Sales managers can use the distributor performance dashboard, reports, and performance metrics to see a summary of how all their distributors are performing.
The Insurance Agent Portal template allows independent insurance agents to use insurance tools and features. It helps them manage and expand their customer base.
Onboarding
The Discovery Framework feature allows you to make and handle assessment questions, show digital assessments, and gather information to start serving customers. You can use the Know Your Customer (KYC) data model to check prospect details and rate their risk level. With the Data Consumption Framework, you can quickly connect with other companies to assess risk and screen prospects.
Mortgage
In Financial Services Cloud, the Mortgage feature includes a new way to organize mortgage applications, along with new templates for standard processes and new components for displaying information in those processes.
Commercial Banking
The Commercial Banking Console app helps bankers see more clearly how they interact with customers in areas like business loans, managing money, trade finance, and others. It uses Business Referrals to make it easier for managers and assistants to refer businesses to each other.
What are the capabilities of Salesforce Financial Services Cloud ?
Actionable Segmentation
Actionable Segmentation allows you to group clients with similar profiles, organize them, and create personalized outreach programs that are timely and relevant.
Action Launcher
With the Action Launcher component, service agents can solve customer problems faster and more effectively. They can use it to quickly find and start actions such as OmniScripts, Screen flows, Field Service Mobile flows, and Autolaunched flows.
Action Plans
Create templates for tasks that repeat often, then automate these sequences with an action plan. Improve teamwork and efficiency by automatically assigning tasks to the right people and setting deadlines for specific client activities, like opening accounts, approving loans, and processing claims.
Actionable Relationship Center (ARC) in Financial Services Cloud
The Actionable Relationship Center (ARC) shows you your customers’ relationships in a simple graph that’s easy to explore. ARC helps you see how people and businesses are connected using interactive features.
Aggregate Records Using API
Use Household API Setup to get household information and related records like Financial Accounts, Financial Holdings, Assets, Liabilities, and Members using Connect API requests.
Ensure Privacy of Customers With Audit Trail
Audit Trail allows service agents to review logs of customer identity verification, identify possible cases of identity fraud, and ensure compliance with audit standards. It works with records of customer identity verification created during the Verify Customer Identity process used by customer service representatives (CSRs).
Branch Management
Monitor how well branches are doing and how productive they are using Branch Management.
Business Client Engagement
Use the Onboarding and Know Your Customer (KYC) data models to help business clients get started. Improve how efficiently and compliantly you onboard business clients by collecting details like beneficial owners, controlling parties, and business structure.
Business Rules Engine
Make it easier to decide if someone qualifies, and speed up finding solutions by using the Business Rules Engine to automate complex decision-making.
Caller Identity Verification
Always confirm the caller’s identity before sharing sensitive information. Businesses worldwide must follow regulations to verify customers’ identities, preventing fraud and financial losses. Not following these rules can lead to legal consequences. Organizations must ensure that anyone requesting confidential information proves their identity before access is granted.
Capture Income and Expenses
Display cash flow trends to bankers and financial advisors, assisting them in evaluating client financial well-being and suggesting ways to achieve financial goals.
Complaint Management
Complaint Management simplifies how service agents record and submit client complaints directly from a Person Account record. Case agents can also keep track of and monitor complaints that have been submitted.
Compliant Data Sharing for Financial Services
The Compliant Data Sharing feature allows Financial Services administrators and compliance managers to set up advanced rules for sharing data. This helps them follow regulations and company policies better. They can manage and track which data is shared with whom, without needing to write complicated code.
Data Consumption Framework
Using the Data Consumption Framework, your agents can get up-to-date data from external systems right within Salesforce, without needing to switch platforms. This framework expands on the FlexCards and OmniScripts by adding integration settings that improve real-time performance.
Discovery Framework
The Discovery Framework lets your users build digital forms to gather and verify data, reducing the need for slow and mistake-prone manual processes. Using the Discovery Framework data model and OmniStudio, your users can design digital forms and oversee all parts of data collection driven by questionnaires, ensuring compliance with your policies.
Document Generation
With Document Generation, you can create contracts, proposals, quotes, reports, non-disclosure agreements, service agreements, and other types of documents.
Document Checklist Items in Financial Services Cloud
In Financial Services Cloud, you can handle your document approval process. First, specify the types of documents needed. Next, create a checklist item for each document required from a customer. Customers or users then upload the necessary files for each checklist item. These files are monitored as they go through your approval process. Customers can follow the status of their uploaded documents from submission to approval.
Engagement
Use the engagement data model to keep information about interactions between a customer and a service agent.
Events and Milestones
With the Events and Milestones component, get an at-a-glance view of your customers’ life events or milestones. Use the details to identify upcoming opportunities and devise timely personalized offers and engagement.
Provide a Comprehensive View of Customer Financial Account Details
Using the FSCFinancialAccountsSummary component, service agents can view financial accounts, transactions, and record alerts associated with accounts in one place. The financial account details show information stored in Salesforce. The comprehensive view of financial account details helps agents to resolve customer queries quickly and efficiently.
Financial Deal Management
Track and manage a financial deal lifecycle. By using the Financial Deal Management data model, deal teams can manage every aspect of deal-related information and take advantage of compliant, role-based data sharing options. They can create new financial deal records that specify a deal’s stage, status, probability of deal success, and more. And to maintain compliance, they can share deal records that contain confidential information only with relevant stakeholders.
Financial Plans and Goals
Help your clients plan for and reach their short and long-term financial objectives using the Financial Goals and Financial Plans objects. These objects are available with your Financial Services Cloud license. Financial plans and goals use OmniStudio for added customization.
Streamline Your Customer Onboarding Experience
Give your users access to a prebuilt sample app that streamlines the customer onboarding process. The sample app includes OmniScripts, Flows, Integration Procedures, Omnistudio Data Mappers, and other components that can be deployed to your Salesforce org and customized to meet your unique onboarding needs.
Intelligent Document Automation for Consent and Disclosures
Manage consent and disclosure documents, generate authorization request forms, and track user responses by using Intelligent Document Automation features.
Intelligent Need-Based Referrals and Scoring
Source referrals internally and externally across lines of business. Users create and automatically route referrals based on a customer’s expressed interest, from savings accounts to home loans. Build processes to create automatic email notifications that keep users up-to-date. The dashboards and reports make it a snap to identify and reward top referrers.
Interaction Summaries
Capture and share interaction summaries.
Interest Tags for Financial Services Cloud
Let your users add custom Interest Tags to client records to capture client needs, interests, and prospecting opportunities. Having clients’ interests in mind during client interactions helps deepen relationships. Organize interest tags into tag categories, which group similar interest tags so that you can easily create reports and dashboards showing common themes and interests across clients.
Know Your Customers
By using the Know Your Customer (KYC) data model, your users can perform identity verification, risk assessment, and screening checks of parties with ease. Parties can be accounts, contacts, or leads.
OmniStudio for Financial Services Cloud
Use the OmniStudio managed package to create guided interactions and other rich user experiences without code. You can even create applications and workflows using data from Financial Services Cloud and from external sources.
Record Alerts
Alert your agents to changes in client records that require action. Using Record Alerts, agents can scan records for notifications that show information from your core banking system or from alerts that are stored in Salesforce.
Record Association Builder
Define criteria for linking new or changed records with the branches that work with them.
Service Process Automation
Service Process Automation helps you streamline and automate service-related operations. The core component of Service Process Automation is Service Process Studio, a framework that lets you design case-driven service processes, starting from request intake to fulfillment. Each service process includes an OmniScript for request intake through assisted and self-service channels and it features flows for streamlined fulfillment.
Tear Sheet Generation
Summarize information from objects in a tear sheet. By using the Summary Document component, your users can quickly generate a tear sheet that summarizes the information they need from one or more objects. To quickly access the document, your users can attach the document to an Account, Contact, or Financial Deal record page layout where the component is added.
Timeline in Financial Services Cloud
Timeline provides a comprehensive and chronological view of customer interactions, showing key events relating to a person or a resource in one place.
Transaction Dispute Management
Transaction Dispute Management provides a streamlined process for your users to capture and submit customer disputes related to financial transactions.
Work with Data in Financial Services Cloud
Integrating data from custodians, banking systems, financial planning, portfolio management, asset aggregation, and all the other platforms that support your front- to back-office is a major implementation task. If you use Data Loader to bulk import data, we recommend a sequence for exporting and importing the initial objects.
When uploading the data:
- Maintain consistent naming conventions for the account and contact parts of individual clients.
- Don’t upload financial transaction data that could override fields that are automatically calculated in Financial Services Cloud, doing so will affect other field values and roll-up summaries.
We recommend this sequence for uploading individual, group, and financial account data – Individuals, Identification documents, Employment, Education, Relationship groups, Individuals’ relationships to groups, Charges and Fees, Financial accounts, Cards, Financial account transactions, Billing statements, Securities, and Financial Holdings. Continue with the remaining objects in any sequence.
Financial Services Cloud Availability and Limitations
General Sales Cloud and Service Cloud Compatibility
The Financial Services Cloud documentation describes the Sales Cloud and Service Cloud functionality with which the Financial Services Cloud features work. Salesforce makes no representation regarding Financial Services Cloud features functioning with any other Sales Cloud and Service Cloud functionality not expressly stated in the Financial Services Cloud documentation.
Features Not Supported with Financial Services Cloud
- Accessibility features aren’t incorporated.
- Shared Activities aren’t supported in group rollup summaries.
General Limitations
Here is the complete list of limitations which Salesforce Financial Services Cloud has.
https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.fsc_admin_gaps_limitations.htm&type=5
Integration capabilities with other systems
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud offers an API-centric approach. Its middleware compatibility, real-time data exchange, customization options, and security protocols empower financial institutions for technological transformation.
Integration Procedures within FSC facilitate declarative, server-side processes for executing multiple actions in a single server call. Managing diverse data sources including Salesforce and external systems, it retrieves data for applications like OmniScript, FlexCard, API, or Apex, boosting operational efficiency.
Utilizing Salesforce Financial Service Cloud to its fullest potential requires seamless integration with the systems already in place within financial institutions. By linking with core banking platforms, portfolio management systems, and other pertinent applications, the Financial Service Cloud serves as the primary hub for accessing vital client information and optimizing operational processes. This interconnectedness facilitates a comprehensive understanding of clients, empowering financial advisors and relationship managers to offer tailored services and foster meaningful interactions.
FSC effortlessly links financial, transactional, and CRM data, accommodating various solutions from pre-made integrations to tailored developments. This capability guarantees a comprehensive perspective and handling of customer data across diverse platforms.
If you’re in financial services, you work with a specialized set of needs when it comes to data management and migration.
The Financial Services Cloud (FSC) Transition Assistant is a free tool that simplifies the migration process to FSC by handling discovery, gap analysis, and data mapping between your current setup and FSC. It aids in all stages of implementation, from scoping to rollout.
Integration partners can utilize the tool and deliver the report output to their clients. In this scenario, the Transition Assistant offers the following kinds of information:
- Automatically created metadata aiding in mapping the current organization’s data model to the FSC objects and data model.
- Comprehensive list of potential conflicts and elements that could be impacted by the migration.
- Identification of components needing manual migration, should the client opt for metadata migration.
Customization and Adaptation
While Financial Services Cloud comes with many built-in features, each financial institution operates differently, with its own processes, rules from regulators, and business goals. That’s why customizing the platform is so important—it helps get the most value out of it.
Here are several key areas where you can customize:
1. Data Model Adjustment: Changing the data setup to include more client information, financial products, or specific industry data fields helps make sure everything fits well with how the organization handles data and reports.
2. Workflow Streamlining: Making customized workflows and automation rules helps make everyday tasks easier, such as bringing in new clients, managing accounts, and following rules, which makes operations smoother and reduces mistakes from doing things manually.
3. System Integration: Linking Financial Services Cloud with current systems like core banking platforms, portfolio management tools, or regulatory reporting systems helps sync data and make all systems work together better.
4. User Interface Tailoring: Changing how the interface looks to match the organization’s branding and what users prefer helps them use it more and makes their experience better overall.
5. Compliance and Security Settings: Setting up special security steps like encryption, access controls, and other measures keeps in line with industry rules and protects private client data.
6. Enhanced Analytics and Reporting: Creating customized reports, dashboards, and tools for analyzing data that focus on specific business goals and performance measures helps people in charge get useful information and make smart decisions based on data.
7. Client Engagement Enhancement: Creating unique client websites, message templates, and automatic marketing processes makes client communication better and improves relationships with them.
What is the future of Financial Services Cloud?
Salesforce shows this commitment through FSC, continuously improving with 24 updates since it started eight years ago. This focus on refining and meeting the financial sector’s needs has been well recognized.
Salesforce’s dedication to excellence in this area was acknowledged when it was recognized as a leader in The Forrester Wave: Financial Services CRM for Q3 2023. Their specialized approach ensures businesses receive solutions tailored to their specific challenges, improving efficiency and customer satisfaction
The 2023 Dreamforce event, which is the ultimate gathering for all things Salesforce, focused on discussions about the FSC roadmap, which are typically kept private. Now, these sessions are accessible for further exploration on Salesforce+, allowing us to delve into the strategic directions Salesforce is pursuing and what they mean for the financial industry as a whole.
Investment in Personalisation and Proactivity: At the core of Salesforce’s plan is a strong dedication to making customer experiences more personalized. They use data, artificial intelligence, and CRM tools to automate business processes, aiming to customize every interaction for each user. This could be revolutionary for financial institutions striving to better understand and meet their clients’ needs.
Unified Lending Platform: A major focus was on the launch of a single platform for lending, set to modernize how loans are started. This not only boosts efficiency but also provides customers with a smooth experience. They can begin their loan application online and finish it in person at a branch, offering flexibility.
More innovation in Wealth Management: Improving goal planning, combining customer behavior and financial data, and forming groups with smart insights.
A Deep Dive into Insurance: Salesforce is making big moves in the insurance industry. They’re introducing new tools like an insurance service console and integrating marketing, along with improving claims management. The Winter release brings innovations that aim to make managing policies easier and better, like making retroactive changes and offering multiple insurance products in one place.
Emphasis on Group Insurance and Benefits: Salesforce is dedicated to improving every aspect of group insurance with upcoming upgrades. They’re introducing tools such as large group coding, making changes during a policy, and monitoring employee contributions, all to make things simpler and more efficient.
Access Control: The new system for controlling access across different business areas is interesting. It starts with options for retail banking and will expand to include wealth and insurance services soon.
Harnessing AI: Salesforce’s vision for AI is very practical. They invest in areas like transaction disputes and customer service to use AI for automating tasks and improving processes. They plan to work with chargeback vendors to make transaction processes better, showing their strong commitment. Customers like PenFed have shared how they use large language models (LLMs) and generative AI to automate contact centers.
Combining Data, AI, CRM, and Trust shows the future of financial services..
OmniStudio and more OmniStudio: The FSC product is focusing more on OmniStudio, investing in moving the old Vlocity product into their main platform for better performance. Omniscript, Flexcards, DataRaptors, and Integration Procedures are good for customers, but not for ISV partners because OmniStudio isn’t ready for ISVs and can’t be included in managed packages.
Here are some not FSC-specific but equally interesting and important plans for customers in financial services:
Einstein 1 Platform: Salesforce’s new AI platform that makes it easy to use AI tools and keeps data private with the Einstein Trust Layer.
Einstein Copilot: A feature in the side panel that allows users to interact using natural language and provides better multi-step action plan suggestions.
Einstein Trust Layer: Ensures secure data retrieval, data masking for personal information, toxicity detection, auditing, and no data retention for Salesforce customers.
Free Data Cloud and Tableau licenses: All customers using the Sales and Service Cloud in the Enterprise or Unlimited edition get free Data Cloud and Tableau licenses, including two Tableau Creator licenses and Data Cloud licenses for up to 10,000 profiles.
