The Urgency of Reinvention in the Financial Sector

I don’t provide financial advice, but I do focus on everything related to information management, secure work practices, and innovation. You could compare the status of your IT infrastructure—the foundation that ensures, among other things, secure work practices and the sharing of information—to a decision about your home: there may come a time when you have to say goodbye to (virtually) everything you’ve built onto or around it. You might leave something in the garden intact, but your main residence is ready for demolition. Building new is actually the better option, even though it breaks your heart to say goodbye to something you’ve enjoyed for years.

It’s the same in the world of information management, document management, and secure digital workflows. Suddenly, for example, it turns out that integration with the outdated legacy system is too costly or even impossible. Even though it looks good on the surface—like a freshly painted house—the foundation is crumbling. To stick with this metaphor: I believe that the rise of AI means that many well-established financial institutions need more than just a facelift. It’s important to embrace open standards—provided, of course, that they operate securely.

Through my many years of work at OneXillium, I’ve been able to build up a wealth of knowledge about incoming and outgoing information flows. In conversations with clients, I often say that we’ve reinvented document management. We could have continued using systems that, in and of themselves, are a great “home” for text-based content, but in the new digital world, we were primarily looking for systems that welcome all forms of communication.

This led to Enterprise Information Management: we wanted to be able to connect all digital information securely and efficiently. This focus on security led to the acquisition of BM Consultants and RedTeam Cyber Security in 2024. We are constantly adapting to the market and are now among the largest players in the Benelux region in the field of cybersecurity and Enterprise Information Management.

Sticking with what you’ve been used to for years is easier than embracing innovation. This is especially true in the financial sector, where important issues like trust and security are at stake. So why should it be any different? Personally, I’m convinced that there’s a huge opportunity for AI. After all, there’s a labor shortage, but there’s also pressure on margins. Everything has to be smarter, faster, better, and at an acceptable price. The future of repetitive tasks? AI agents are already taking those over, and I personally expect their use to grow enormously. Still, a human will always have to take responsibility for the advice given.

At the same time, AI presents a new challenge: AI is only as smart as the information it has access to. Many organizations, however, possess a wealth of knowledge in documents, files, emails, and contracts. That information is often scattered across different systems, though. That is precisely why it’s becoming increasingly important to maintain control over your business information and centralize it in a secure location. This is also necessary to comply with regulations such as DORA. Setting up access controls—determining who can see what and why—plays a key role in this, for example. It’s something we’re happy to advise you on.

There’s one more thing I’d like to bring to your attention. If you’re in the process of reinventing something, it’s worth considering that you likely already have a great deal of information at your disposal. However, I often see a challenge here as well. For example, many organizations think that “data-driven work” means you can quickly use something stored in a CRM system somewhere else. That’s partly true. But how do you do that with content stored in unknown locations, or hidden somewhere in a document? It could be that one contract clause or exception to the rule that isn’t centrally stored.

Solving challenges like these is what I enjoy. That means uncovering data you didn’t even know existed (anymore). The more substantive content that can be uncovered, the greater the value you can derive from, say, an LLM model. If you get all of that right, you’ll undoubtedly get the very best answers from your AI agent.

We look forward to seeing you at the VIP 2026 event!