Overview:
- Client life cycle management varies across markets, requiring tailored support for institutional clients including banks, fund managers, and venture capital firms.
- End-to-end client life cycle includes onboarding, KYC, tax and regulatory reporting, and offboarding, with a focus on risk management.
- The transformation program addresses three pillars: policy refresh, process optimization, and technology agility using AI and data platforms.
- A flexible rules engine is being developed to ensure scalability and support business growth across over 50 markets.
- Clean, high-quality data integration is key to reducing turnaround time and enhancing client onboarding and reporting efficiency.
Kiran Dhillon, Chief Product Owner for Client Lifecycle Management at Standard Chartered, is leading a transformation effort to streamline how institutional clients are onboarded, managed, and offboarded across more than 50 global markets. The initiative focuses on reducing turnaround times and improving regulatory compliance through policy refreshes, process optimization, and technology upgrades.
At the heart of the challenge is managing risk while adapting to diverse regulatory environments. Dhillon’s team is building a flexible rules engine to support scalable growth and meet country-specific requirements. “We want to make sure that we have a global policy but then address some of the nuances by different countries,” Dhillon told BackgroundBriefing.news.
The program targets three key areas:
- Policy – Updating legacy frameworks to reflect current client maturity and market conditions.
- Process – Achieving an 80/20 balance between global consistency and local customization.
- Technology – Leveraging AI and data platforms to reduce manual intervention and improve data quality.
Dhillon emphasized the importance of agility in platform design, noting that the bank is integrating external data sources to produce clean, high-quality data faster. “That will help reduce the turnaround time for the client cycle onboarding,” she told BackgroundBriefing.news.
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About the speaker:
Kiran Dhillon
Chief Product Owner, Client Lifecycle Management
Standard Chartered
Kiran Dhillon, Chief Product Owner, Client Lifecycle Management at Standard Chartered Bank, is an accomplished banking professional with over 15 years of experience in Project and Program Management across London and Singapore. Her career spans high-value, multi-year initiatives within Custody and Fund Services, with a strong focus on institutional clients and global coordination.
Dhillon is recognized for her calm leadership, strategic vision, and ability to navigate complex regulatory environments. She excels in cross-functional collaboration, leveraging Agile, Human-Centered Design, and innovation frameworks. Her work includes partnerships with fintechs like BlackRock, BNY Mellon, and Snowflake, driving integration and co-creation to support client-centric solutions.
FAQs:
What is client lifecycle management?
Client lifecycle management is the end-to-end process of handling institutional clients, including onboarding, KYC, tax compliance, regulatory reporting, and offboarding.
Who are considered institutional clients?
Institutional clients include banks, fund management firms, and venture capital companies that operate across multiple markets.
Why is client lifecycle management complex?
It is complex due to varying regulatory requirements across 50+ markets, risk management needs, and the demand for scalable systems.
What are the three pillars of Standard Chartered’s transformation program?
The program focuses on policy refresh, process optimization, and technology adoption, including AI and data platforms.
What does the 80/20 policy split mean?
It means maintaining a global policy framework while allowing 20% customization for country-specific regulatory and operational needs.
How does technology improve client lifecycle management?
Technology reduces manual work, improves data quality, and enables faster onboarding and reporting through automation and AI integration.
What role does AI play in this transformation?
AI helps automate risk checks, streamline policy enforcement, and integrate external data sources for cleaner, faster data processing.
What is a rules engine and why is it important?
A rules engine applies business logic dynamically, making systems flexible and scalable to adapt to changing regulations and client needs.
How will these changes benefit clients?
Clients will experience quicker onboarding, accurate regulatory reporting, and a smoother process across multiple jurisdictions.
What is the ultimate goal of the transformation program?
The goal is to create a scalable, compliant, and client-focused platform that supports growth and adapts to evolving regulatory landscapes.
5W1H summary:
| Category | Summary |
|---|---|
| What | 1) Client lifecycle risk transformation 2) Onboarding to offboarding processes 3) Policy, process, technology overhaul |
| How | 1) 80/20 global-local policy model 2) AI and data integration 3) Flexible rules engine build |
| Why | 1) Reduce onboarding turnaround time 2) Meet diverse regulatory requirements 3) Enable scalable business growth |
| Who | 1) Institutional clients and investors 2) Standard Chartered leadership teams 3) Country compliance stakeholders |
| Where | 1) Singapore and London hubs 2) 50+ markets across ASEAN 3) Global network including Malaysia |
| When | 1) Ongoing multi-year program 2) Current regulatory change cycle 3) Near-term platform modernization timeline |
Transcript of the interview:
The client life cycle end to end across our markets really varies. We have different products, we have clients, and we support the client institution business.
The life cycle management really is to make sure that we manage the risk of a client’s profile and really help clients be able to use us as a network to do business.
So there are different regulatory requirements, different KYC requirements, and we aid that process.
And when you say institutional investors or institutional clients, I’m guessing you’re talking about other banks, fund management houses.
That’s right.
Venture capital even.
That’s right.
So what does that phrase mean?
Client life cycle all the way from onboarding, KYC, supporting their tax requirements and regulatory reporting, and even in some cases offboarding as well.
I think that end to end client life cycle meeting our clients in the corporate institution segments across our different footprint.
And you manage the risk part specifically.
Yes, that’s right. My portfolio is in the current state in our platforms, how we are managing the policies that we have, and really being the sandbox into the transformation program that Tom talked about earlier.
It is really key that we make sure that we are committed to delivering our regulatory requirements. This enables countries and them to serve our clients within the framework of that country’s nuanced needs across the bank.
What we are also making sure we are doing with the evolution of the landscape is managing the risk component. We are seeing through AI technology, we are seeing through different data aggregators the opportunity really to streamline some of our policies.
There are three key elements that we are trying to address as part of this program:
- Policy. We have been an established bank across our markets for years. We have over 50 markets. We have a broad range of different clients of different maturity, so our policies are going to be refreshed.
- Processes. We want to make sure that we have an optimal 80/20 split in terms of making sure that we have a global policy but then we address some of the nuances that we need to by different countries.
- Technology advances, including AI, including platforms where you do not have to customize. We really want to build an agility into the system.
That means building our rules engine so it is flexible. The biggest problem I really have is making sure that we have a scalable product to enable business growth.
We are here for good. We know that the landscape is changing. We want to take the opportunity to bring in some of the advances already.
Earlier on we talked about how do we really integrate some of the technology and the data externally so we produce clean quality data as quickly as possible. That will help reduce the turnaround time for the client cycle onboarding, making sure that when we are serving reporting needs we can do it in the most efficient manner.