Financial Services
“What I get from NECG is three very senior line managers spending a lot of time thinking about my business.”
Our Clients
Our Expertise
Banking
Your firm’s reputation for trust is paramount. Hard to earn, critical to maintain, and if damaged, exceedingly hard to rebuild. At NECG, we have decades of experience in building, strengthening, insulating, and even repairing the reputations of some of the world’s leading financial services firms.
One of the world’s most respected investment banks had suffered massive reputational damage during the global financial crisis, putting its asset base, revenues, client relationships and shareholder value at risk. Its stock tumbled 59% in just three months, and it faced unprecedented public outrage and regulatory scrutiny. One of our partners assembled and led a team of experts to develop a comprehensive strategy, reporting to the CEO, and tackled this challenge on several fronts, including public image, legislative & regulatory, shareholder, institutional investor, and corporate brand. Within a year, this coordinated program restored the firm’s reputation to exceed pre-crisis levels, and propelled its stock to an all-time high, over 15% above its pre-crisis record.
“Their ability to move swiftly, comprehensively, and decisively in the face of extraordinary complexity and risk was remarkable.”
– CEO, Global Investment Bank
Credit Cards
The credit card industry has become one of the most commoditized in financial services, second perhaps only to cash.
For one of the world’s largest and most prestigious credit card companies who had been losing share for years to fast growing bank cards, we led a repositioning that restored growth and prestige via a combination of new business models, new innovative products, new digital innovations, and superior access for consumer cardholders and commercial customers with multiple reward programs that increased cardholder acquisition and decreased customer churn.
“The New England team challenged everything that we thought was sacred and identified new business models and new value propositions that had previously been rejected by our team but were the keys to a major business turnaround that continues to this day.”
– CMO of market leading credit card company
Brokerage
Stock brokerage firms have been a relationship-driven business targeting older wealthy investors since the beginning, with few variables differentiating competitors other than the price of transactions.
For a deep discount brokerage firm known principally for “cheap trades”, we repositioned the brand to become the financial partner of choice for younger independent investors, and used technological forecasting to predict that the cost of brokerage transactions would be a race to the bottom (zero), replacing their low-price positioning with one of trust and performance, and adding digital innovations to expand their TAM and enter adjacent financial services white space.
“In the years we worked with New England, the only mistake I can remember them making was not accepting our stock in lieu of their fee because our stock grew 10x.”
– CEO of one of the largest security brokerage firms today
Funds
The mutual fund and subsidiary ETF business(es) have been maturing for some time now, but they represent a major asset class for most financial services companies.
For a financial services company wishing to enter the mutual fund and ETF businesses, but with virtually no assets under management in either, we conducted a make/buy analysis which resulted in the recommendation to create the first ever supermarket of mutual funds and ETFs, including all of the major proprietary funds and a range of private label funds under the corporate name, which today houses a half trillion dollars in assets.
“My team thought New England was crazy to recommend a supermarket of mutual funds because everyone knows supermarket profit margins are paper thin until New England explained that supermarkets make money buying stuff and not selling stuff, which is exactly what we did.”
– CEO of one of the nation’s largest financial services companies
P&C Insurance
There is no more competitive sector in financial services than P&C insurance. The battle for customer growth is intense and must be fought on several fronts. NECG’s expertise in brand positioning, marketing and channel strategies spans decades and has driven significant growth and market share gains for some of the industry’s leading players.
One of our partners led a comprehensive program to leverage a distributed sales force with marketing and sales enablement tools that created exponential growth by improving the productivity of thousands of agents whose growth had stagnated, driving record new customer acquisition growth and increased market share.
“Never before had we realized such value from our agent business! We’re now seeing sustained growth across the board.”
– Chief Growth Officer, National P&C Leader
Wealth Management
The wealth management sector has become a sea of sameness, with largely undifferentiated value propositions chasing the same (most obvious) prospect pools. NECG’s expertise in segmentation and insight-mining, combined with our deep experience in customer relationship management, have helped several leading players to tap new prospect pools and gain competitive advantage.
For one of the largest wealth management advisory firms, our team developed a new segmentation strategy and marketing plan that opened new avenues for growth and helped to dramatically increase AUM.
”NECG opened our eyes to new possibilities through a rare combination of data-driven analytic discipline and creativity. They helped us see opportunity in places our competitors overlooked.”
-CMO, Wealth Management, leading asset management firm
Insights
Beyond Interest Rates and Economic Uncertainty
In an era where the narrative surrounding the challenges facing the financial services industry is dominated by macroeconomic indicators such as interest rates, inflation, and recession fears, there exists a parallel narrative that demands equal, if not more,...
The Art of Strategic Defense and Innovation in the Face of Expanding Financial Goliaths
In an era where digital transformation is reshaping the financial services landscape, the strategic move by JPMorgan Chase to significantly expand its brick-and-mortar presence comes as a bold counter-narrative. This plan to add 500 new retail bank locations over the...
Unlocking the Next Wave of ETF Growth
Globally, the past year witnessed unprecedented traction for ETFs, with over $1 trillion in inflows. This surge is indicative of a burgeoning market, with a record number of new issuers introducing innovative offerings. While factors such as the SEC's regulatory...
