Modular Platformization: How Manaos Transformed the ESG Investor Experience
The startup created by BNP Paribas Securities Services, the BNP Paribas division specializing in securities services and custody, aims to facilitate the centralization and connection of its clients’ investment data to their financial and ESG service ecosystem. Manaos took on the challenge of evolving its experimental project into a highly sought-after industrial service offering within the ESG ecosystem. A successful bet with its modular platform.
In 2019, BNP Paribas Securities Services initiated an “extraordinary” project aimed at addressing the challenges of the investment world and revolutionizing how investors access their ESG data and services.
Today, the Manaos platform is widely recognized as a success both technically and operationally.
It now employs over 50 people, serves numerous clients, and benefits from the contribution of over 120 organizations that provide data to feed the platform.
An ESG Marketplace allowing investors to have their portfolios evaluated by the best ESG data and service providers.
ESG: An Operational Challenge for Manaos’ Target Clients
Institutional investors have historically faced numerous operational obstacles, particularly in data management. These difficulties lead to time and money losses, as well as uncertainties regarding the quality of their ESG data and investment positions.
Inflexible IT Systems: A Major Obstacle to ESG Projects
Investors work with rigid processes, relying on inflexible technical environments that would require expensive replacements. The inertia of IT systems is the primary cause of delays in ESG projects [1].
Lack of Connectivity: ESG Data Management That Costs Clients Dearly
Investors often work with siloed, local, low-tech systems that slow them down in managing vast amounts of ESG data. In practice, it takes an average of one year for a client to switch data providers [2].
Opacity of Portfolios: A Major Barrier to ESG Investment
In a context of transparency requirements driven by Solvency II, investors struggle to efficiently collect fund inventories from their asset managers and track the evolution of their portfolios. They still too often rely on email to share confidential portfolio compositions, leading to security gaps and a manual processing system that is unsuitable for the volumes involved in investment transparency.
Investors’ Time-to-Market Threatened by New Regulations
Investors realize that regulatory deadlines are imminent and that marketing times are shrinking. As a result, they must act quickly.
Manaos’ Solutions
To address these historical obstacles, Manaos was built with the ambition to tackle these issues holistically and relieve investors of these friction points.
To achieve this, a complete overhaul of the data exchange, sharing, and visualization processes was necessary. It was equally important to ensure an optimal level of security and confidentiality of client data.
Manaos’ Transformation Challenges
In this context, Onepoint worked closely with Manaos to address the challenges of this transformation, namely: the transition to public cloud, data security, and the development of a user-friendly fintech offering.
Transition to Public Cloud: The Royal Path for Manaos Investors
In France, the adoption of public cloud remains relatively limited among banking institutions and investors. This reluctance is largely explained by regulatory constraints and concerns related to data sovereignty. These are often seen as incompatible with such infrastructure.
Absolute Data Security
The data is hosted in a Public Cloud, requiring the creation of a platform with absolute security from its design. To achieve this, Manaos implemented the best market practices by adopting the approach of « Security by Design[3] ».
Always with the goal of ensuring absolute data security, the teams made bold decisions regarding encryption. The objective was to ensure total confidentiality for anything that could be shared between clients.
The promise of Manaos is that no one else, not even Manaos employees, will ever be able to read their data. All data is encrypted, and only the client holds the key.
An intuitive fintech offering, easy to adopt and use
In a highly competitive digital economy, user experience can be the determining factor. Beyond excellence in platform quality and security, Manaos stands out by offering an unparalleled experience for its users. This involves keeping their primary concerns in mind: ease of use, enhanced ergonomics, a smooth and seamless experience, and a precise match between technology and investors’ needs…
The expertise in UX Design and the adoption of cutting-edge technologies allowed for the creation of an elegant and fast platform, aligning with the next-generation applications we are used to using on our mobile devices.
ESG Reports enabling investors to generate standardized, customized reports or extracts at the asset level.
Manaos: Listed among the 100 most innovative ESG fintechs worldwide by Fintech Global in 2023
With their strong reputation within the BNP Paribas group, the founders of Manaos chose to trust Onepoint from the outset to successfully execute this project. The collaboration aimed to ensure agile, fast, and secure delivery.
Onepoint’s role in the growth of this project, four years ago, was pivotal in key areas such as AWS Cloud Architecture, cybersecurity, UX Design, and full-stack development.
This close collaboration between Manaos and our Onepoint team, strengthened by cooperation with AWS professionals, enabled the creation of a top-tier operational platform within the ESG investment and technology partner ecosystem. All of this was achieved while adhering to the strict deadlines set by the startup’s launch context.
Onepoint’s expertise in Asset Management, its agility with cloud offerings, and its systemic approach to security (“Security by Design”) allowed its teams to quickly adapt and deploy their expertise.
Manaos is experiencing strong growth, and Onepoint has played a key role in our development. We have strengthened our IT team and continue to rely on the expertise and flexibility provided by Onepoint. With the successes and challenges we’ve overcome together, we have built a relationship of trust and a solid partnership.
Today, the platform is operational, the initial goals have been achieved, and the industry has warmly welcomed this initiative. Manaos was even awarded the title of Best ESG Initiative at the AM TECH DAY AWARDS 2022[4].
[1] « How ESG data markets have evolved for financial services », ey.com, Mars 2023.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Vincent Rémon, « Trop de vulnérabilités dans vos applications ? Essayez le Risk Based Vulnerability Management », groupeonepoint.com, 2023.
[4] « Manaos, la plateforme de gestion des données d’investissement de Securities Services, est doublement saluée par l’industrie », securities.cib.bnpparibas/fr, 2022.