Mosaic Magazine (Spring 2026)

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEWS

THE STORY BEHIND THEIR RELENTLESS MARCH DOWNSTREAM

P. 06

From the Editor

A welcome to this first issue of Mosaic from our editor Douglas Thomson, with a preview of what's inside.

P. 08

Wealth Recap

Change is redefining wealth management as consolidation, AI, and data strategy reshape competitive dynamics. Our Wealth Recap explores the major trends shaping wealth management over this quarter – including Claude's emergence in the wealth space and the growing importance of data management.

P. 12

Regulatory Essentials

A roundup of the key regulatory developments affecting wealth management over the last quarter in key markets including the UK, European Union, United States, and Singapore.

P. 14

Private Markets

Once restricted to the most exclusive of investor classes, private markets are increasingly opening up to a wider range of investors. We explore what this means for wealth management – the untapped opportunities, the lingering challenges, and the road ahead.

P. 22

Built to Grow

To mark this first edition of Mosaic, our founder Stephen Wall reflects on why he built The Wealth Mosaic, its position today, and where we're heading.

Contents /Navigation

P.26

Optimising revenue management

With Pete Hess President of PureFacts

P.34 The five-year trap

By Paul Kammerer, CCO, MD, fincite

P.38

Industry-led innovation

An interview with David Davies, CEO of Navos Technologies

P.42 Designing AI architectures

An interview with Yann Kudelski, Head of Strategy and Vlad Magereanu, Head Architect at additiv

P.46 Expanding access through digital platforms

An interview with Giovanni Daprà, CEO of Moneyfarm

P.50

Wealth Dynamix Showcase

Wealth Dynamix on why the key to efficient onboarding is to focus on the wider journey.

P.56

The future of wealth management

AI, technology and the evolution of global advisory, by Abhijeet Singh Hazare, Head of Sales at Intellect AI

P.62

AI speed, human judgement

An interview with Murali Nadarajah, CIO at Eton Solutions

P.66 Inside First Rate

Introducing First Rate: an independent WealthTech provider blending culture, stability, and scalable global solutions.

P.74 From portfolios to people

By Rabih Ramadi, Co-Founder and CEO, Avantos

Editor's Note

Douglas Thomson Head of Content, Editor The Wealth Mosaic

Welcome to the first edition of Mosaic, The Wealth Mosaic’s new quarterly publication bringing together thoughtful analysis, technology innovation, news, and insight to our global wealth management community. Created for wealth management professionals, Mosaic’s mission is to offer insightful coverage of the leading themes, technologies, and experiences that are forging our industry’s future. Through featured articles, executive interviews, technology showcases, and in-depth company profiles, Mosaic is intended to provide a global perspective on wealth management.

In this issue, we're offering a detailed examination of private market –examining the drivers of their recent growth, the hunger for expanded access, the demand they meet for diversification and higher returns, and ongoing efforts to overcome structural barriers through product innovation and technology.

We also expand on our own recent research paper focused on revenue management, co-published this quarter with our member PureFacts, through an interview with its President Pete Hess, discussing how firms can create cultures of revenue integrity, and the ways in which many are still getting it wrong.

This first edition also includes the first in our series of company profiles, where we explore what makes an individual company tick, what makes it different, and what drives its key people beyond mere profitability. For this edition, we’re profiling First Rate, a WealthTech partner whose story is as much about values as about technology, and whose motto “love, give, serve, enjoy” gives a taste of an unusual perspective on wealth management.

Mosaic combines the contributions of TWM members with the insights TWM itself has gained through its position at nexus of the global wealth management community, to bring you core content that gives a broader view of the trends shaping wealth management across the world.

Finally, for this first edition of Mosaic, and to mark the new era of TWM that it opens, we’re also going to share some of our own history, with a piece from our founder Stephen Wall revealing why he created The Wealth Mosaic. TWM has come a long way since that initial idea, and it still has a long way to go. Whether this is your first time reading one of our publications, or you’ve been with us from the beginning, we’re glad you’re here.

ISSUE #1

Editorial

Douglas Thomson Head of Content

Mungo Hamlet

Managing Director

Stephen Wall Founder

Design

Mungo Hamlet

Managing Director

Supporting Team

Kiarra Astejada

Marketing Manager

Tricia Bebita

Sales Manager

Marcus Pangilian

Data Manager

Contributors

additiv

Avantos

Eton Solutions

Fincite

First Rate

Intellect AI

Moneyfarm

Navos Technologies

PureFacts

Wealth Dynamix

Join our 300,000+ users, readers, and partners

The Wealth Mosaic is, more than anything else, a network. It is our users, readers, and partners that make TWM the world's pre-eminent source of insight and connection for the wealth management industry. What follows in these pages is the product of that community. Thank you for helping us to build it. Thank

/Q1 2026

Wealth Recap

From high-profile acquisitions and major technology deployments to regulatory initiatives and geopolitical shocks, the past three months have illustrated how rapidly the operating environment for wealth management firms is changing. For wealth managers, these events are not abstract trends but practical shifts that influence investment strategy, technology workflows and client conversations. We’ll explore some of these here.

Consolidation accelerates around technology scale

Q1 of 2026 has seen the trend towards greater consolidation across the wealth management space persist, as the underlying push factors of scale needs and margin pressure continue unchanged. Significant deals this quarter include Bain Capital’s acquisition of Perpetual’s wealth management arm in March, in a deal valued at approximately US$350 million upfront – marking another private equity entry into the space. Meanwhile in the UK, Liontrust Asset Management has announced its acquisition of River Global Investors’ asset management arm.

Mergers and acquisitions remain a defining feature of the industry, but the strategic rationale is evolving. Historically driven by client acquisition and geographic expansion, consolidation is now increasingly about acquiring technology capability and scale.

The recent acquisition of a majority stake in Danish FinTech bank Saxo by Swiss private bank J. Safra Sarasin reflects a broader industry trend: firms are using M&A to secure digital infrastructure and accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) readiness. The ability to deliver scalable, technology-enabled services is now central to competitiveness in wealth management.

Q1 maintained strong momentum in deal activity across the sector marked by ongoing consolidation of advisory firms, often backed by private equity; strategic investments in WealthTech providers to enhance platform capability; and increased alignment between capital providers and technology vendors.

❝

M&A is expected to remain a key lever for growth in 2026, particularly as firms seek to modernise their technology stacks and respond to rising client expectations.

This aligns with broader industry data showing that M&A is expected to remain a key lever for growth in 2026, particularly as firms seek to modernise their technology stacks and respond to rising client expectations.

This sustained activity is reinforcing the trend toward integrated ecosystems, where firms combine advisory, technology, and capital capabilities. Firms that cannot build modern platforms internally will increasingly look to acquire them.

The agentic AI transition

❝ Wealth management is becoming a technologydriven industry, with human expertise augmented by increasingly capable AI systems.

The arrival of Claude and the rise of agentic AI

If consolidation is reshaping the structure of the industry, AI is redefining how work gets done. Q1 2026 marked a significant step forward in AI adoption, with Anthropic expanding its Claude platform into financial services –including wealth management, for which Anthropic has launched specific plug-ins that enable firms to build customised, private AI systems embedded within their own environments. These tools integrate with existing enterprise systems and data sources, allowing advisers and firms to automate research, client analysis, reporting, and operational processes.

Claude reflects a broader transition toward agentic AI – systems capable not just of generating insights, but of executing tasks across workflows. Early research suggests AI agents in financial services are evolving from narrow tools into integrated systems that can perceive data, as well as reasoning and acting within defined constraints.

Claude’s releases in Q1 focused on secure, firm-level deployments within enterprise environments, integration with internal data systems and workflows, and customisable AI agents capable of supporting specific operational and advisory tasks. Firms like LPL Financial and Orion are already exploring these new capabilities.

Alongside its product expansion, Anthropic reached an estimated US$380 billion valuation during Q1 following a funding round – confirming the scale of capital flowing into AI infrastructure providers.

Q1 also saw visible market reactions to AI developments. Listed wealth managers and related platforms experienced share price pressure amid concerns about the impact of AI on traditional advisory models.

As AI tools become capable of automating elements of advice, reporting, and operations, the market is making its own reassessments of cost structures and long-term margins.

Data management is growing in importance

Q1 has seen an increased focus on data infrastructure as a prerequisite for AI deployment. Firms are moving beyond recognising the importance of data to actively addressing longstanding challenges, including fragmented data architectures, inconsistent data quality, and limited accessibility across systems.

This has led to new internal initiatives and external partnership aimed at building unified data platforms that can support AI-driven workflows.

Data strategy is no longer a parallel effort, but one that is being prioritised alongside AI implementation.

A changing operating model

Taken together, these developments point to a fundamental redesign of the wealth management operating model.

The following structural shifts are becoming clear:

• AI-a ugmented advice is becoming normalised. Human advisers remain central, but increasingly operate as final decision-makers supported by AI-driven insights and automation.

• Data is becoming a core asset. Unified client data platforms are emerging as the foundation for personalisation, pricing, and service delivery.

• Platforms are replacing products. Wealth management is moving toward platformbased models, integrating third-party capabilities, APIs, and embedded services across ecosystems.

• Capability is more important than scale. Although scale remains important, this is only so when it is combined with technology and data capabilities. These drive both consolidation and partnership strategies.

What this means for wealth management professionals

Whether they are advisers, CIOs, COOs, or technology vendors, professionals across the wealth management industry will have to adapt to these trends.

Workflows will transform, as routine tasks become automated. Skills will evolve as data literacy, AI oversight, and technology fluency become essential capabilities. Technology vendors will become more fundamental to wealth managers’ activities, and selecting and managing these vendors will become a core competency, not a peripheral task. And as AI becomes more embedded in decision-making, regulatory compliance will become more demanding.

Wealth management is becoming a technologydriven industry, with human expertise augmented by increasingly capable AI systems. For wealth management firms, the strategic question is no longer whether to adapt, but how quickly and effectively they can do so.

What’s in line-of-sight?

Regulatory Essentials

The regulatory environment for wealth management is shifting toward simplification in reporting but greater scrutiny of operational resilience, investor protection, and cross-border activities.

United States

Below we break down some of individual regulatory developments requiring firms’ attention.

Potential change to ‘small adviser’ threshold

The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed raising the ‘small adviser’ threshold to US$1 billion AUM, potentially reshaping the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) market and how future rulemaking assesses regulatory burdens on smaller firms.

Action point: Assess whether revised thresholds could change your firm’s regulatory classification.

United Kingdom

Reform of investment product disclosures

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is replacing EU-derived disclosure templates with what it has called a more flexible regime aimed at reducing complexity and improving investor engagement. Implementation is expected to roll out over the next 18 months.

Action point: Begin reviewing client disclosure frameworks and digital communications to align with the forthcoming disclosure model.

Regulatory recalibration and supervisory shift

Under its 2025-2030 strategy, the FCA is beginning to adjust supervisory practices toward a more targeted approach that differentiates between firms “demonstrably seeking to do the right thing” and those requiring closer oversight. Larger asset and wealth managers may face increased direct supervisory engagement.

Action point: Strengthen governance and compliance evidence to be seen as “demonstrably seeking to do the right thing” and potentially reduce supervisory intensity.

European Union

Liquidity management rules under AIFMD 2.0

In December 2025, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) finalised its updated guidance on liquidity management tools (LMTs) for UCITS and alternative investment funds. The guidance clarifies the use of mechanisms such as redemption gates, swing pricing, and anti-dilution levies. The rules apply to new funds from 16 April 2026, with a one-year transition for existing funds.

Action point: Review fund documentation and operational processes to ensure LMT frameworks meet the updated ESMA standards for April 2026 launch deadlines.

Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) operationalisation

The EU’s new central anti-money laundering (AML) supervisory authority is establishing its 2026-2028 priorities, including the development of a unified AML rulebook and the identification of up to 40 institutions for direct supervision beginning in 2028.

Action point: Anticipate greater harmonisation of AML standards across EU jurisdictions and prepare for increased data reporting and supervisory scrutiny.

Capital markets integration initiatives

The European Commission’s Market Integration Package, published in December, proposes amendments to the MiFID, UCITS, and AIFMD frameworks and supervisory powers for ESMA. It is intended to reduce barriers to cross-border fund distribution and trading. Legislative negotiations are ongoing through 2026.

Action point: Monitor implications for crossborder fund passporting and potential changes to supervisory reporting structures.

Singapore

Liquidity risk management updates

In December, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) began consulting on proposals to revise fund management companies’ liquidity risk management. The proposals would revise governance requirements and require closer alignment between fund liquidity and redemption terms, and encourage use of anti-dilution liquidity management tools.

Action point: Wealth managers should review the liquidity profiles, redemption terms, and liquiditymanagement tools of funds they distribute to ensure alignment with MAS expectations.

❝

Wealth managers must proactively adapt to remain compliant and competitive.

/Focus

on

Private Markets

Data and insights into the forces, challenges, and innovations shaping the evolution of private markets.

A growing market

The topic of private markets, and alternatives more broadly, has become increasingly prevalent across the wealth management landscape in recent years. An investment area that was previously restricted to institutions and ultra-high net worth (UHNW) clients, private markets investments are being pushed downstream and increasingly made available across the wealth management landscape.

According to Standard & Poor’s, private markets assets under management (AUM) totalled approximately US$15 trillion in 2024 – up from US$11.87 trillion in 2023 and US$10.89 trillion in 2022. By 2027, they are expected to reach more than US$18 trillion. The market is believed to have grown by four or five times since the early 2000s.

Big numbers, significant growth, and still somewhat untapped – this all adds up to opportunity.

What are private market

investments?

Private market investments are those that are not traded on public exchanges. For that reason alone, they have been difficult to access outside closed and limited-access networks. They have also been seen as much higher risk than their publicly traded cousins – with long lock-ins, high minimum investment thresholds, limited liquidity and control, little access to data or to increasingly technology-led processes and speeds more familiar in public markets, a perceived higher risk of loss, and so on. For these reasons, private market investments have until recently been the preserve of those with millions to allocate to each investment and the ability to accept the operational and financial risks.

In terms of what exists in the private markets sphere, we are talking about:

• Private equity (buyouts, growth equity, venture capital)

• Private credit (direct lending, distressed debt)

• Private real estate

• Infrastructure investments

• Secondaries and co-investments

All this has been outside the realm of the everyday investor, and these asset classes have only been at play in the private wealth space for UHNW individuals, family offices, and the like.

But the growing trend is to take them downmarket. Not quite mass market yet, but in that direction.

Why are they growing in the wealth management landscape?

Historically, any discussion around these asset classes focused on the risk, the operational challenges, the lack of data and automation, the high entry requirements, the lack of liquidity, the need for specialist knowledge, and so on. These asset classes were not productised.

But now these assets are in favour with investors for a variety of reasons, including:

• Boosting returns

Private markets opportunities and asset classes like private equity have historically delivered higher long-term returns than many public investment solutions.

• Diversifying portfolios

Private market assets support diversification and have exhibited lower short-term correlation with public markets, helping to reduce volatility.

• Expanding investor access

Many investors feel on principle these assets should be more widely available - why should they be the preserve of the richest?

For private businesses, there are also clear factors leading them to remain private longer or to forgo going public. However, these businesses also have financing needs, have growth stories that would support investment, and so on. There is a clear need to better support them in the private sector through access to capital, growth investment, and related resources.

With this backdrop, we have a global theme at play: financial enablers in private markets are undergoing a long-term process to address operational challenges, introduce technologyenabled processes, systematise distribution and management, and productise the private markets arena for a wider range of investors. Although this is often portrayed as driven solely by buyer needs, in reality both buyer and vendor needs are at play. The enablers of this asset class – private equity investors, fund managers and other players in the financial services landscape – are also looking to broaden and diversify their distribution channels.

The result of these forces is that privatemarket investments are becoming an increasingly large share of the private wealth investment landscape.

Allocations to private markets

Historically, data suggests that private wealth investors, on average, have allocated a maximum 5 percent to private market asset classes. This rises the higher up the wealth pyramid you go, especially in the UHNW segment.

But numbers are on the rise across the board.

According to Long Angle's 2026 High Net Worth Asset Allocation Report, 94 percent of high-net worth (HNW) investors now allocate to private and alternative assets. In their fifth annual benchmark study, Long Angle found that these investors allocate 28 percent of its total net worth and 31 percent of their investable portfolios to these asset classes. Of that, private company equity represents 12 percent, exceeding the total

allocation to bonds and cash. Higher up the wealth pyramid, the allocations to private and alternative allocations reach 34 percent.

Another study by Hamilton Lane this year found that 97 percent of the 390 advisers surveyed globally allocate between 1 and 20 percent of their business to private markets. Further, 86 percent of these advisers expected to allocate more to private markets in 2026.

With margins under pressure, growth in private markets allocations is also good for business. According to PwC’s 2025 Global Asset & Wealth Management Report, private markets investments also generate about four times more profit per billion dollars of AUM than traditional investments. In the same report, PwC suggests that by 2030 private market revenues will reach US$432.2 billion from a total AUM of US$34 trillion, also delivering more than half of total assetmanagement industry revenues.

Private-market investments are becoming an increasingly large share of the private wealth investment landscape.

By 2030 private market revenues will reach US$432.2 billion from a total AUM of US$34 trillion.

PwC 2025 Global Asset & Wealth Management Report

Knowledge, education, and suitability

There remains a significant knowledge gap among both investors and advisers, and private markets might still not align with the risk profiles and goals of many investors.

Operational and technological infrastructure

Historically, these were manually managed asset classes, where the structuring, onboarding, management, and reporting have been detailed, complex, and paperbased. Most industry technology was built for public markets, not private markets.

Data and insights

There is a lack of available data, making insights around manager selection, monitoring, and reporting complex.

Bottlenecks

Although private markets are growing in the wealth space, and multiple initiatives are in play to facilitate and extend the opportunity, there remain significant bottlenecks.

Investment minimums and illiquid nature

High investment minimums make offerings hard to access, while long investment lock-in periods mean products are often highly illiquid.

High fees and fee complexity

The model of a standard 2 percent management fee plus 20 percent performance fee, plus the potential complexity of fee structures, make these asset classes less attractive to newer investors.

Regulatory environment

Many products are limited to accredited investors, while the costs of the compliance processes can be extensive.

Productisation

To break down barriers and support the growth opportunity, the industry is working to make private market investments easier to access, manage, report on, and exit. This is happening in multiple ways:

Lower investment minimums

• Private market feeder funds and interval funds

• Registered alternatives, such as private funds under securities laws in the United States

Retail friendly structures

• Closed-end funds with periodic liquidity

• Interval or tender offer funds

• Business development companies (BDCs)

Digital platforms and distribution channels

• Online investment platforms such as Altive, Bite Investments, CAIS, iCapital, Delio, Moonfare, Private Markets Alpha, Titanbay, etc.

• Fractionalised ownership and tokenisation

Expanded regulatory rulings

• Updated regulatory frameworks in markets like the United Kingdom, the European Union, and United States, that allow non-qualified or ‘retail’ investors to buy

• Initiatives such as the UK’s long-term asset funds, European long-term investment funds, US interval funds, Singapore’s proposed long-term investment fund, etc.

Structured products

• Certificates linked to private market indices

• Notes or structured solutions tied to private asset baskets

• Funds of funds with liquid share classes

Modelling and tooling

• Risk/return modelling incorporating these asset classes

• Suitability and advisory tools to determine appropriate exposures

Benchmarking and index linked solutions

• Private market indices

• Index linked products

• Model portfolios with private allocations

Secondary markets

• Facilitated liquidity solutions, where investors can buy and sell existing private market positions prior to fund maturity

• Dedicated secondary funds and platforms that aggregate and match buyers and sellers of private assets

• Technology-enabled marketplaces that improve price discovery, transparency, and transaction efficiency

A Key industry initiatives and developments

cross the market, we see a consistent flow of initiatives in terms of new market entrants, including technology and data offerings, new partnerships to support distribution, and new investment product launches. Large organisations including UBS, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have all built dedicated private-market distribution channels. Smaller wealth managers, including financial advisers, private banks, and registered investment advisers, although they may also strike direct deals with product manufacturers, are also more likely to engage through some of the platform providers mentioned above.

Conclusion

Private markets are transitioning from a niche, institutionally dominated asset class into a more accessible and increasingly integral component of the broader wealth management landscape. Strong growth in AUM, rising investor allocations, and the search for enhanced returns and diversification all point to sustained momentum.

But this expansion is not without friction. Structural challenges – including illiquidity, complexity, data limitations, and regulatory constraints – continue to temper widespread adoption. The industry is responding to address these barriers through product innovation, technological enablement, and evolving distribution models.

The trajectory of private markets will depend on how effectively stakeholders balance accessibility with suitability and risk management.

Ultimately, the trajectory of private markets will depend on how effectively stakeholders balance accessibility with suitability and risk management. If executed well, private markets have the potential to redefine portfolio construction and unlock new sources of value for a much wider investor base.

MOSAIC

BUILT to GROW

Why I built The Wealth Mosaic

Stephen Wall Founder, The Wealth Mosaic

The foundation of The Wealth Mosaic began in 2014 as I was walking through the mountains of Vorarlberg, Austria. I got to thinking: the wealth management market was changing, access to knowledge was limited, technology’s role was increasing role, traditional sources of information were becoming outdated, and the market was clearly in need of fresh, accessible resources.

Mix in some personal and career elements with that market change, and the stage was set for The Wealth Mosaic.

The Wealth Mosaic is a cutting-edge digital marketplace dedicated to enhancing the wealth management sector by connecting service providers and industry professionals with valuable resources and solutions. Our platform is designed to streamline access to innovative technologies, insightful content, and strategic partnerships.

A changing wealth management industry

Let’s start at the top. Wealth management is changing – faster, more fundamentally, and with greater and more sustained impact than anything the industry has ever witnessed before. The current artificial intelligence (AI) noise is the latest, and maybe strongest, indicator and driver of change. But change has been building for over a decade.

As I wrote last year, there are eight core areas of change:

• Clients

• Advisers

• Skills

• Business

• Financial

• Technology and data

• Products and services

• Regulation.

What was clear when we launched in 2017 is even clearer now. The scale of change is amplified, but so is the opportunity for wealth management businesses.

The key role of third-party providers

To deliver on the industry's full set of needs, firms must work with a wide variety of thirdparty providers to service their clients, run their businesses, maintain their competitiveness, remain compliant, and so much more. Long gone are the days when everything is done in-house. That might remain a preference in some areas and is indeed a strength for some parts of the business. But wealth managers need to engage with thirdparty service providers (vendors) across many aspects of their businesses.

A wealth management firm is like a supermarket. They are the display, the brand that attracts the client, the people that have the relationships – but much of their core product is sourced from, run through, administered by, delivered by, a thirdparty provider.

No wealth management firm excels at everything. Whether that means consultants, recruitment, marketing, technology, regulatory compliance, or investment solutions, wealth management firms rely on a marketplace of vendors to support their needs.

Historically, access to those vendors has been fragmented – driven by word of mouth, recommendations, search, publishers, consultants, events, and random meetings. None of these provides a quick, easy and comprehensive view of the provider marketplace.

Increasingly, engaging with the right supplier is also a regulatory topic. It’s definitely a risk and reputational topic. It has to be done properly, so why cut corners?

The Wealth Mosaic was built to solve this.

A comprehensive vendor directory

Our vendor directory is the core of what we offer to the market. It is a single place, accessible to all, to discover all relevant vendors and their relevant offerings to their industry. Global, comprehensive, online, research-led, it is open to everyone regardless of size, market, budget, age of business.

No one was doing this– because it’s hard! – but it needed to be done. Before TWM, no-one had a clear view of what offerings were available in the market. Any directories that did exist in the market were afterthoughts or limited in scope or access or reach. Some were paper-based. Some were behind high paywalls or tied to consulting fees. Nothing was well-designed. Some were tied to awards. All were incomplete.

TWM set out to be directory-first, researchled, freely accessible, continuously updated, and comprehensive. In a market shaped by misinformation, it is designed as a source of truth. That is where our global vendor directory comes in.

A research-led mindset

Another key principle is to be research-led. We do not sit back and wait for the market to find us. We must explore the market, find new providers, update existing directory entries, track who is active, and discover new solutions. Building a useful directory is not a ‘one-shot and done’ effort – it is a regular exercise of build, maintenance, and development.

That process of exploring the market ensures that our directory develops into a more powerful resource for the industry in the future. Our plans to develop it are ambitious, and they require us to have our eyes and ears open to what is happening in the marketplace.

Delivered online and global in focus

This type of resource must be delivered online: there is no other way to do it. It needs to be dynamic, backed by a tagging system that allows for a wide range of criteria.

TWM is more of a digital marketplace than a directory. Its vendor pages function as microsites built especially for our members. It is a deep, digital resource, built to support searching, and offers users a view into the businesses and solutions that are relevant to their needs.

Where we are heading with TWM is far beyond a set of listings – think more like Airbnb than the yellow pages.

I also always built TWM to be global. Although it supports local markets and segments, it does so with a global view. By being global, we can also better support those many vendors that are multi-country, multi-segment, and multi-topic.

Although markets differ, the basic trends at play and our eight drivers of change are basically the same in each.

Built for wealth management

TWM is dedicated to and focused on wealth management. The industry is changing, and it is complex. Although it might overlap with several other sectors, it requires dedicated resources and a purpose-built marketplace, not something dropped in from another sector.

Accessible to all, limited to no one

Accessibility is central. Too many other knowledge resources are inaccessible or simply outdated. TWM is online, comprehensive, and global, intended to function as an accessible industry resource.

The accessibility principle is true for both sides of our marketplace – wealth managers as the consumers and solution providers as the vendors. They both need a resource that is accessible –one for discovery and learning and the other for advertising and positioning.

Everything about TWM has accessibility at its heart. Our directory is built on both free and paid profiles; our annual membership is cheaper than a single business class flight; our products and services start at a low price point and offer variety based on budgets.

❝ The wealth management sector needs The Wealth Mosaic and resources like it. What you see from us now, I can tell you, is just the start.

Strength in the community

I built The Wealth Mosaic as a community. It’s not about restricting access to those able to pay the highest fees. It’s about serving an industry formed of many types of firms, of all shapes and sizes, and recognising they all have a role to play. They are all part of the Mosaic – the many pieces that come together to form the whole.

Professionals in this industry engage with The Wealth Mosaic to position, to sell, to inform, to learn, to connect, to attend events, or to seek service providers: we have built an offering that allows them to do all those things cost-efficiently and consistently.

Increasingly, it will be our community that will also shape our development. How do they want the directory to develop? What topics should we focus on? Which markets should we be in? What resources should we develop?

Today and into the future

The Wealth Mosaic is on a journey full of learning, development, ideas, mistakes, and progress. We are still only at the foot of the mountain. We have our all-weather gear on, we know the route up – but we’ve still got to climb it!

Our vision for the future is still founded on each of the elements I have described above. They are our founding principles. Nothing I have seen in the market since I founded the business has changed that. If anything, the change we are seeing in wealth management simply reinforces what we are doing, our principles, and our direction of travel.

The wealth management sector needs The Wealth Mosaic and resources like it. What you see from us now is just the start.

Optimising revenue management: spillage, leakage, and pricing discipline

Read & Download

In partnership with:

In February 2026 The Wealth Mosaic published a new research paper in our WealthTech Insight Series – Optimising revenue management: spillage, leakage, and pricing discipline

Produced in partnership with end-toend revenue management platform PureFacts and strategic advisory firm Pirker Partners, the report explores how firms can better realise the true value of their earnings through effective and integrated revenue management.

The paper found that:

Revenue management is becoming strategic

Revenue management is evolving from a back-office billing function into a strategic capability. Firms that manage pricing, billing, and compensation in an integrated way are better able to protect margins and turn growth into durable profitability.

Revenue pressure is structural

Fee compression, rising costs, regulatory scrutiny, and increasing complexity have permanently changed industry economics. AUM growth no longer guarantees earnings growth, making revenue discipline essential.

Spillage and leakage quietly erode margins

Firms typically lose revenue through two mechanisms:

• Spillage – under-pricing and discounting that prevent value entering the pipeline.

• Leakage – operational failures that prevent earned fees from being collected.

Together, these represent a persistent and often overlooked drag on performance.

Complexity drives revenue risk

Growth, acquisitions, multiple platforms, and bespoke client arrangements increase the gap between theoretical and realised revenue. Without integrated systems and governance, complexity magnifies losses.

Pricing discipline and data are the key levers

Clear pricing frameworks, controlled discounting, and monitoring realised versus expected revenue offer the biggest opportunities for margin improvement. Clean, consistent data is the foundation for enforcing discipline and improving forecasting.

Revenue must be managed end-to-end

Leading firms treat revenue as a lifecycle – from pricing through billing, collection, and compensation. Integrated revenue processes improve visibility and predictability, turning revenue from something reported after the fact into something actively managed.

Revenue integrity is a competitive advantage

Firms that build disciplined revenue infrastructure can convert growth and complexity into sustainable profitability, while those that do not risk ongoing margin erosion.

Read on as weexplore thepaper'sfindings in more detail.

Discover more in a new interview with PureFacts’ president, Pete Hess – who discusses how firms can move from after-the-fact revenue reporting to real-time control; why accountability for pricing and revenue outcomes often breaks down in practice; and how complexity from segmentation, alternatives, and acquisitions can be made scalable without eroding margin or adviser trust.

See page 28-33

Understanding revenue integrity

Pete Hess President of PureFacts

Pete Hess has been president of PureFacts since 2024 and was previously Chief Revenue Officer at InvestCloud. He is based in San Francisco.

The paper, Optimising revenue management: spillage, leakage, and pricing discipline, argues that revenue management is shifting across the industry from a back office necessity to a strategic capability. In your experience, what typically triggers this shift inside a wealth management firm – and why does this happen later than it should for many?

The shift happens when leaders realise revenue is a system, not an outcome. The trigger is usually a margin moment: growth looks fine, but profitability doesn’t keep pace. That’s when leadership notices two uncomfortable truths. First, pricing decisions are happening daily without consistent guardrails. Second, even ‘billed’ revenue does not always become cash as cleanly as assumed.

It also happens when executives apply the same standard they use for other mission-critical functions. Firms invest heavily in systems for trading, accounting, performance, and compliance because those domains have zero tolerance for defects. Revenue management deserves the same zero error-tolerance, because billing and adviser compensation are equally high-consequence.

It happens later than it should because many firms treat revenue operations like plumbing. As long as statements go out and month-end closes, leadership assumes they are close enough. But complexity makes ‘close enough’ expensive.

Once leaders see small inconsistencies repeat at scale, revenue management becomes strategic. Not because it’s flashy, but because it’s one of the most controllable levers to improve margin and accelerate growth. Tightening revenue discipline can materially lift organic growth, sometimes doubling it, because more of what you already earned actually shows up.

You make the case that spillage and leakage are structural rather than accidental. Have firms pushed back against this idea, and what evidence changes their minds?

Yes, and the pushback is rarely defensive. It’s pragmatic: “Sure, there’s some noise, but we can’t be losing that much.” Many organisations admit they’re not perfectly optimised, but believe they’re close enough.

What changes minds is quantification, plus a simple reframing. When you quantify pricing consistency, discounting, exceptions, and billing-to-cash friction across real portfolios, the impact is often larger than leaders expect. Then the conversation shifts to quality standards: if the firm expects nearzero defects in trading or accounting, why accept recurring defects in billing and compensation?

The surprise is in the compounding effect. Each cycle you tighten pricing discipline and reduce collection friction, you don’t just recover revenue once, you raise the baseline going forward. For many firms, reducing spillage and leakage is one of the fastest paths to materially increasing organic growth because it improves conversion of existing demand into durable, realised revenue.

In firms that consistently discount or underprice, what patterns do you typically see in day-to-day pricing decisions? How have firms broken out of these patterns?

The pattern is usually a lack of consistent guardrails, plus social and time pressure. Advisers make rational decisions in the moment, often to win or keep business, but without benchmarks that make pricing defensible and repeatable. Over time, discounting becomes a habit, and habits scale.

Breaking out requires operationalising discipline with a ‘zero defects’ mindset. Not zero flexibility, but zero ambiguity about what should happen and why. Firms need segment-based pricing guidance that is simple to use, clear approvals rules, and visibility into where discounting concentrates by adviser, team, product, and segment. Flexibility should be measurable and intentional.

Where we help is by connecting strategy to execution – making pricing decisions observable, enforceable, and comparable, and giving operations the tools to execute cleanly without heroics. That gives leaders the ability to coach with facts, refine benchmarks, and move discounting from reflex to exception.

❝

Each cycle you tighten pricing discipline and reduce collection friction, you don't just recover revenue once, you raise the baseline going forward.

The paper describes segmentation as both a revenue multiplier and a risk amplifier. How do firms unintentionally turn segmentation into a source of revenue leakage instead of advantage – and how can they reverse this?

Segmentation fails when it is conceptual instead of operational. Firms define segments and service models, but the rules don’t translate into consistent pricing behaviour or clean billing execution. The result is predictable: value is lost upstream, and downstream teams spend time fixing exceptions rather than scaling.

Reversal means making segmentation real and defect-resistant. That starts with defining segment economics and pricing benchmarks, then embedding them into fee calculation, billing, and monitoring. It also means measuring drift: where discounting creeps in, where exceptions cluster, and where operational friction increases. Operations teams do the best they can with the tools they have. Better tech makes it possible to reduce exceptions and move toward zero defects.

The firms that win treat segmentation as a control system, not a label. When segmentation is wired into the revenue lifecycle, it becomes a multiplier because the firm can grow with discipline. When it isn’t, inconsistency grows faster than the business, and the cost of ‘managing’ the segments shows up as leakage.

Making complexity scalable

❝

When segmentation is wired into the revenue lifecycle, it becomes a multiplier because the firm can grow with discipline.

❝

Each exception feels manageable until exception volume becomes a permanent operating model.

The paper highlights alternative investments and bespoke offerings as major accelerants of complexity. Where do firms most underestimate the revenue risk these products introduce?

Firms expect alternatives to be complex, but they underestimate how quickly complexity multiplies exceptions, and how unforgiving clients and advisers are when errors appear. Bespoke fee logic, non-standard timing, and data dependencies create two forms of drag. Upfront, teams rely on judgement without consistent benchmarks, which makes underpricing likelier. Downstream, classification and workflow

complexity slows execution and creates manual fixes that delay or reduce collection.

The bigger issue is normalisation. Each exception feels manageable until exception volume becomes a permanent operating model. At that point, the firm is not just dealing with complexity, it is funding complexity with margin. Manual processes do not scale to a zero-error tolerance standard.

Our approach is to make complexity scalable. Consistent rules, clean classifications, and visibility into where exceptions concentrate. That lets firms keep offering sophisticated products without letting them erode profitability.

Many firms can explain what happened to revenue after the fact, but struggle to influence outcomes in real time. Can you describe a case where a firm closed the gap between visibility and control?

One firm could report results monthly, but by the time issues were visible, the quarter was already written. They closed the gap by moving from afterthe-fact explanation to in-cycle steering, with a focus on defect prevention.

On pricing, they introduced practical benchmarks and made discounting measurable by adviser and segment, which created faster behavioural feedback. On execution, they reduced billing-tocash friction by standardising classifications and eliminating repeatable manual workarounds that caused breaks. The operations team didn’t suddenly become ‘better’ – they just had better tools and clearer decision rights, which drove exception rates down toward a zero-defects posture.

The result wasn’t perfection; it was control. Leadership could see performance drifting early, intervene precisely, and improve outcomes before the cycle closed. Real-time does not need to mean ‘instant’. It needs to mean ‘actionable while decisions can still change’. That’s what separates reporting from performance management.

Several executives interviewed for this paper talk about shifting from managing on AUM to managing on realised revenue. What practical changes does that prompt?

The conversation becomes sharper and more operational. Leaders move from “Did we grow?” to “Did we grow profitably, consistently, and repeatably?”. Pricing discipline and billing-tocash execution become performance levers, not back office details. They also demand the same quality standards they expect elsewhere. Realised revenue and compensation accuracy need a zero-error-tolerance mindset because the firm’s credibility is at stake.

Research included interviews with seven executives of leading US wealth firms

Practically, firms invest in a trusted revenue foundation – one version of the truth across calculation, billing, and distribution. They manage leading indicators, not just outcomes: discounting patterns, exception rates, workflow breaks, and collection performance by segment and product.

They also revisit incentives. If compensation rewards growth at any price, pricing discipline will lose out. This shift is powerful because it is controllable. Markets aren’t. Firms can control pricing consistency, execution quality, and how quickly they correct drift. That’s how firms protect margin while scaling, and how they preserve adviser trust in the numbers.

When pricing discipline or revenue outcomes break down, how do firms typically assign responsibility – or avoid doing so? What does effective accountability look like in practice?

When discipline breaks down, responsibility often diffuses. Advisers blame policy, operations blames behaviour, finance blames process. That is what happens without shared facts when people spend their time tracking down errors.

Good accountability starts with clarity. Clear decision rights for pricing and approvals, clear benchmarks, and clear exception-tracking so the organisation can learn instead of argue. Then comes visibility: where discounting concentrates, where exceptions originate, and which segments or products consistently deviate from strategy.

From there, accountability becomes constructive. Coaching gets specific; policies become enforceable; incentives can reinforce the desired outcomes. Importantly, advisers are freed from having to double-check the back office. When mistakes erode trust, advisers spend time verifying instead of advising.

Effective accountability is cultural, but also technical – better systems and workflows help operations deliver the zero-defect standard the business expects.

The paper describes how revenue issues after an acquisition often emerge quietly rather than dramatically. What should firms do during integration to make sure those issues are caught early?

Treat integration as revenuemodel integration, not just systems integration. Acquisitions introduce different pricing norms, discount habits, fee schedules, classifications, and workflows. If you don’t map those differences early, inconsistency becomes the default and gets baked in.

There is also a behavioural reality post-M&A. Many firms avoid changing client pricing for a year or two, because advisers and clients are acutely sensitive to perceived fee moves during integration. That puts even more pressure on getting the existing pricing and compensation numbers exactly right. When eyes are on the back office, there is no room for avoidable errors.

Strong integrations start with a revenue baseline: segment benchmarks, pricing guardrails, fee logic, and billing-to-cash workflows across both organisations. Then they establish early indicators to detect drift, discounting patterns, exception volume, invoice breaks, and ageing trends. If leaders can see divergence in the first few cycles, they can correct it before it becomes ‘how we do things here’. Revenue synergies aren’t just cross-sell. They’re about preventing margin and trust erosion during a fragile period of change.

As revenue management becomes more strategic, where do firms most overestimate their maturity? Which capabilities are undervalued?

Firms often overestimate maturity by equating reporting with control. Dashboards don’t mean revenue is being managed – they often mean revenue is being explained. Another maturity trap is believing “ops has it handled”. Operations is usually doing the best they can with their tools, but revenue management should be zero-defect, just like trading, accounting, performance, and compliance.

The undervalued disciplines are the ones that prevent margin erosion: pricing benchmarks that are actually used, exception strategies that reduce repeat work, clean classifications

that prevent downstream friction, and governance that connects pricing behaviour to execution outcomes. These disciplines also protect adviser trust. When billing and compensation are consistently right, advisers stop second-guessing and the organisation gets time back.

The common theme is operationalising strategy. Many firms have a strong commercial thesis, but lack the infrastructure and feedback loops to execute consistently. The firms that lead treat revenue discipline as a competitive advantage. Not because it’s glamorous, but because it compounds. Each improvement in pricing consistency and execution efficiency becomes part of the baseline going forward. That is how you scale without needing heroic effort every month.

❝

Effective accountability is cultural, but also technicalbetter systems and workflows help operations deliver the zerodefect standard the business expects.

The firms that lead treat revenue discipline as a competitive advantage. Not because it's glamorous, but because it compounds. Each improvement in pricing consistency and execution efficiency becomes part of the baseline going forward.

TThe five-year trap

How modern private banks become digital dinosaurs

here's an uncomfortable truth circulating among private banking CIOs: if your core platform was built five to seven years ago as an individual solution for your company, you're probably running legacy infrastructure. Not legacy in the traditional sense of decades-old mainframes, but legacy in the only sense that matters in 2026 – too slow to compete.

This isn't hyperbole. It's mathematics. The digitalisation wave that powered the last technology cycle lasted just 15 years. The artificial intelligence (AI) wave currently reshaping wealth management is moving even faster. Yet most private banks are still operating on platforms architected for a world where screens were bridges, not barriers, and where 'digital experience' meant having a mobile app.

By Paul Kammerer, Chief Commercial Officer, Managing Director of fincite

❝

The Amazon effect has reached private banking

Private investors are no longer comparing your service to other private banks. They're comparing it to Amazon, to Netflix, to every consumer technology that delivers instant gratification. When a client can order a luxury vehicle and have it delivered within 48 hours, waiting three days for consolidated portfolio reporting feels archaic.

Private investors are no longer comparing your service to other private banks. They're comparing it to Amazon, ❞

The concept powering this shift is deceptively simple: time-to-value. Every interaction, from onboarding to portfolio rebalancing, must deliver immediate results. Microsoft's research on AI implementation in financial services reveals that banks deploying modern platforms are seeing 75 percent reductions in time

spent searching for information, with corresponding nine-point gains in employee satisfaction. These aren't marginal improvements; they're competitive moats.

Consider the onboarding experience. Can your firm onboard a new investor digitally with electronic signatures in under 48 hours? If the answer is no, you're losing mandates before the first meeting ends. Competitors who can move faster are already capturing clients who value responsiveness as much as expertise. We see retailfocused brokers and neobanks moving upmarket into private banking. They are targeting digital natives and the next generation of wealth inheritors.

“ Private investors no longer compare you to banks; they compare you to instant, seamless experiences delivered by consumer technology leaders.

Build for continuous evolution

❝ Platforms built five years ago are already legacy in a market accelerating faster than ever.

When screens become walls

Watch any relationship manager in action. The moment they rotate their laptop towards a client to display portfolio analytics, something subtle but profound occurs: physical distance increases, conversational flow breaks, emotional connection diminishes. What should be a moment of collaborative insight becomes a standardised presentation.

The future of advisory interfaces isn't better dashboards. It's invisible technology. Voice-toaction systems that allow advisers to request portfolio stress tests, trigger compliance checks, or generate customised reports without breaking eye contact. The technology should disappear, leaving only the relationship.

This shift requires rethinking platform architecture entirely. Instead of building better navigation

menus, forward-thinking banks are implementing natural language processing that understands intent. When an adviser says, “Show me concentrated positions above five percent for the Martinez family,” the system should instantly visualise the data – no clicks, no menu navigation, no interruption to the conversation.

The context problem: why generic AI fails in wealth management

expensive noise. True value emerges when AI accesses comprehensive context: consolidated assets across multiple custodians, real estate holdings, alternative investments, sustainability preferences, and crucially, the qualitative factors that make each family's situation unique.

Most private banks are experimenting with AI. Many are failing in identical ways. They deploy powerful models trained on vast datasets, then wonder why the outputs feel generic, irrelevant, or actively unhelpful.

The issue isn't the AI. It's the context. A recommendation engine that knows a client's risk profile but not their family dynamics, cross-border tax obligations, or three-generation wealth transfer goals is just producing

This is where most implementations break down. Banks bolt AI capabilities onto existing platforms that were never designed to centralise this depth of information. The result is technically impressive but practically useless –an intelligent system operating with incomplete information.

“ The strategic choice is stark: build platforms designed for continuous evolution, or accept steady competitive decline as innovation cycles compress and faster-moving rivals capture clients, redefine expectations, and widen the gap daily. “

Beyond question-answering:

AI that prepares decisions

Legacy platforms were built around data retrieval: 'What's the current portfolio value?'. Modern AI must transcend this reactive model. The question isn't what happened, but why it happened, what it means in context, and what options exist moving forward.

Imagine a relationship manager preparing for a quarterly review. Before they open the file, AI has already surfaced relevant stress test scenarios, identified portfolio concentrations that exceed strategic targets, suggested rebalancing opportunities aligned with the client's investment policy statement, and prepared comparative analyses of alternative strategies. The adviser arrives prepared to discuss decisions, not to compile data.

This shift from question-answering to decision-preparation requires fundamental architectural changes. Event-driven systems that monitor portfolio drift in real-time. Intelligent caching that anticipates information needs before they're articulated. Modular design that allows rapid integration of new capabilities without complete platform overhauls.

The one-size-fits-none fallacy

A relationship manager serving wealthy families navigating complex estate planning operates in a different universe than one focused on emerging wealth or institutional mandates. Their workflows, information priorities, and daily tasks share almost nothing in common. Yet most platforms force both into identical interfaces.

The inefficiency is staggering. Advisers spend hours each week working around rigid tools rather than optimising them for their specific book. The solution isn't more features – it's hyper-personalisation. Drag-anddrop widgets for custom dashboards. Smart search with keyboard shortcuts. Customisable notifications based on actual client needs, not generic triggers. Role-based access that matches how teams actually operate, not how organisational charts suggest they should.

When platforms adapt to advisers rather than forcing adaptation the other way, productivity and satisfaction don't just improve –they multiply.

The compliance imperative: automation or extinction

Regulatory complexity isn't decreasing. MiFID II suitability assessments, complete audit trails, portfolio-level suitability for discretionary mandates; the compliance burden expands with each regulatory update. Manual processes can't scale to meet these requirements.

Real-time pre-trade compliance represents the difference between competitive advantage and regulatory crisis. Systems that block unsuitable orders before execution don't just prevent violations. In many cases, they protect relationships. A declined trade with clear explanation maintains trust. A trade reversal after execution destroys it.

Forward-thinking platforms are embedding compliance into every workflow rather than treating it as

a separate function. This isn't just risk management: it's competitive positioning. When compliance becomes seamless rather than burdensome, advisers spend more time advising and less time documenting.

The platform question every CIO should answer

Ask yourself a diagnostic question: If a client or prospective mandate compared your digital experience directly to your top three competitors, would your platform be the reason you win or the reason you lose?

For most private banks, the honest answer is uncomfortable. Platforms have become table stakes at best, liabilities at worst. The technology that once differentiated has become the infrastructure holding firms back from competing effectively.

The window for transformation is compressing. Innovation cycles are experiencing a dramatic reduction in duration. The AI wave currently reshaping wealth management is moving faster still. Banks operating on platforms built five years ago aren't just behind; they're exponentially behind, and the gap widens daily.

The strategic choice is stark: architect platforms for continuous evolution, or accept that your competitive position erodes with each technology cycle. There is no middle path. The question isn't whether to transform, but whether you'll lead the transformation or be consumed by it.

The firms winning mandates in 2026 aren't building for where wealth management is. They're building for where it's going. The only question that matters is: which camp is your firm in?

❝

AI without full client context produces impressive outputs that ultimately fail to deliver meaningful value.

Paul Kammerer Chief Commercial Officer, Managing Director fiincite

Email: paul.kammerer@fincite.de

Phone: +49 171 9890734

Website: fincite.de

Industry-led innovation

An interview with David Davies CEO of Navos Technologies

David Davies founded Navos in 2020, after 12 years at Hargreaves Lansdown, where he was Chief Information Officer. He is based in Bristol, United Kingdom. He sat down with The Wealth Mosaic to discuss the value of industry-embedded expertise, an accountability-driven approach to regulation and risk, and the value of bespoke solutions for wealth management firms.

What makes Navos’s perspective different from that of other technology providers when it comes to working with wealth management firms?

This comes back to why I founded the firm. Before joining Navos I was Chief Information Officer at Hargreaves Lansdown for around a decade. I used a variety of technology firms, and the key trend with those organisations was that they never really understood the industry.

I saw a gap in the market for a technology solutions business wholly dedicated to wealth management. I wanted to create a firm that could bring to market the proposition of how to effectively create and iterate technology, without the headache of explaining what a SIPP or tax year end is, as well as managing all the risks your normal tech firm doesn’t appreciate. That’s the core differentiation between us and other providers: we have lived and breathed the

industry we are supporting. We regularly not only provide value, but we also challenge; that in turn builds trust.

We operate under three pillars – advisory, execution, and support; we provide software development, integration, data centre, cybersecurity, and data management services. There’s a key differentiation between creating a technology provision and maintaining, then evolving it; in combining that experience in a ‘one-stop shop’, we are not only springboarding efficiencies for clients but building a unique part of their business.

You spent a significant part of your career as CIO at Hargreaves Lansdown before founding Navos. How does that experience shape your strategy as CEO?

At Hargreaves, I was passionate about delivering technology that could underpin and accelerate business growth in an extremely fast-paced environment. I loved every second of it. I was evolving everything from the client proposition to cybersecurity; it was a 24/7 role, whether ‘keeping the lights on’ or delivering industry-first features, you would find us working more hours than I care to remember.

The pressure of running that market-leading proposition means I know how to deliver the best outcomes for clients, and I was extremely fortunate to work closely with the founders for many years. Now, I feel I’m poacher-turned-gamekeeper. I know what the pressures, challenges, and opportunities are for clients, because I’ve been there. Rest assured, that experience includes when things went badly – which brings a focus that other tech firms often don’t understand.

What do technology firms most often misunderstand about wealth management, particularly when it comes to regulation, risk, and fiduciary responsibility? How does Navos approach that differently?

Building technology solutions in a regulated environment isn’t like passing your driving test, where you can follow the rules for an hour, then be let loose. It’s more like an MOT. A set of standards that must be followed, then evidenced on a regular basis. Yet some IT businesses can and do operate in an industry where they don’t know their GDPR from their SMCR. We’re often called in to rescue a project because it’s off-track: we hear, “it was cheaper to use another firm”, or they were told, “of course we can build an integration with that back office” when the reality was very different.

A wealth firm can’t just pass regulatory responsibility to a random tech company. They still need to remain accountable, but not every business has a Head of IT or CTO. With Navos that is baked into our everyday operation and commercial structure. Solutions that are built by the industry, for the industry, largely bespoke in nature, by a team with real experience. It really does set us apart.

What does that look like in practice and how does it show up in the solutions you build?

Some projects we’ve worked on are bespoke solutions that now help firms deliver more quickly – giving advisers time back, or eliminating doubleor treble-keying. Historically, wealth firms had little choice but to adopt off-the-shelf platforms. What we offer is a different path, aligned to new ways of working to drive efficiences. In many ways we complement the systems already in place.

How does Navos design technology that supports regulatory obligations and safeguarding of client assets without slowing firms down or stifling innovation?

Commonly we’ll hold a workshop, which is clientcentric and driven by our industry understanding. We address security at the outset, by design. It’s very common for those security aspects to come in retrospectively, adding cost and time to projects which are already time- and costcritical. In that workshop we’ll work with clients to define the right solution, but management of risk is never far away from everything we do: that’s part of our construct as a technology business. There are some who mention user experience without considering Consumer Duty – don’t get me started about that!

If you’re looking to deliver a good-quality solution inside wealth management, I would advise working with a technology firm that understands the industry rather than just taking somebody who might muddle their way through. And that means the only option is Navos.

❝ We have lived and breathed the industry we are supporting.

David Davies, CEO, Navos Technologies

Bespoke technology for wealth firms

❝

We're often called on because an AI mess needs mopping up, and increasingly I'm needing a bigger mop.

Why do you believe bespoke technology solutions are worth the investment for firms facing increasing margin pressures?

Don’t get me wrong, bespoke isn’t for everyone, but off-theshelf solutions are often built for the whole market, so if you want customisations within such a system, that normally comes at a premium. Those features that you’ve defined can then be used in future upgrades, meaning your competitors could benefit from your hard work.

Any wealth management firm can buy a fact-finding tool, but it might have 20 pages when the firm’s internal process only requires five. That creates inefficiency for everyone, including clients, so some are using bespoke solutions, introducing efficiency from the outset.

The number of disparate systems in use is a big challenge. Normally, that’s managed by the Ops teams,

entering the same information into multiple places. If you bring in something that’s bespoke, that drives integration, you’ll see efficiency and cost savings too. Paying once works for a lot of our clients, especially if firms are looking to reduce inefficiency and increase their market valuation through owning their own technology.

With cybersecurity now a board-level issue for wealth management firms, what are the biggest cyber-risks you see in the sector today, and where do firms most commonly underestimate the challenge?

Within our industry I sometimes get the impression firms think they’re not on the radar of cybercriminals. I find this a) shocking and b) disappointing. I regularly hear things such as, “we aren’t a target as we only have X hundred million under management”. Believe me, that is a perfect target, and we have been called in when

the worst has happened. Wealth management firms are looking after people’s money whilst having regulatory and contractual obligations. The ignorance of some organisations that think it’s fine to simply have a virus scanner installed, and maybe do the odd annual or biannual penetration test – put simply, it isn’t good enough. I do think more could be done to protect firms.

Ransomware is probably one of the core cyberrisks right now. It’s not always understood, so it’s not commonly mitigated. Sometimes a firm says something like “I don’t need to worry about that because I use Microsoft”. There’s a reticence around the responsibility and also the understanding of who does what in technology terms in the Cloud world. It should be a boardlevel issue but unfortunately that isn’t always the case. If I was on the board of any regulated firm right now, I’d ask one question to their IT team: “Are we at risk of the same issue that took Jaguar Land Rover down?” The answer may surprise you.

How does Navos help wealth management firms approach AI strategically, and what common pitfalls do organisations face when implementing AI initiatives?

We don’t build AI products, but we help organisations deliver outcomes. AI is an exciting opportunity and we work with many firms to ensure our clients choose the right product. Commonly, I will challenge organisations and boards, who are generally the ones seeking an AI solution: “If AI is the answer, what is the question?”. But people don’t always understand what outcome they’re looking for. It’s often a case of “we need AI because a competitor has it”.

We’re often called on because an AI mess needs mopping up, and increasingly I’m needing a bigger mop. AI projects move forward quicker than anything else, and before a firm has addressed other underlying issues. Because the board wants it – in whatever guise – money is made available.

But first the spider’s web of legacy systems and incomplete data, the inaccessibility of third-party systems all need consideration.

That doesn’t mean AI projects are doomed to fail. We continue to help organisations deliver some very good outcomes, but some businesses are running before they can walk and unfortunately are not being challenged early enough. Where AI is concerned, I’d suggest “measure twice, cut once”. When it does work, the speed of improvements can be impressive.

How do you see the wealth management technology landscape evolving over the next five years, and how are you positioning Navos to take advantage of those trends?

Rapidly and with increasing criticality. Firms are commonly looking to differentiate through digital, and acquiring more assets while driving more functionality. Wealth management today is similar to where banking was, back when if you needed to interact with your bank you either had to visit a branch or use telephone banking – before digital challengers came into the market. That’s what’s happening with wealth management. There’s a lot of investment and consolidation, and increasing demands on technology providers. Success will depend on firms, and the technology industry as a whole, working together to drive better outcomes.

Choice will also be crucial to an effective strategy. If I want to see an adviser, I’ll do so. If I want a virtual meeting, I will; if I want to balance some of my own investing with that of my advised portfolio – great. But who says I need two or three logins with different firms to do that, or no log in at all for my advised money? I want choice and so will the next generation of investors. It’s the next five years that are likely to lay those foundations but not in the way they have been over the previous five years. As a technologist, that to me is extremely exciting.

Designing AI architectures

An

interview with

Yann Kudelski, Head of Strategy and Business Development and Vlad Magereanu, Head Architect at additiv

Yann Kudelski and Vlad Magereanu speak to TWM about designing trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) architectures – including the challenges of messy data, fragmented systems, and the practicalities of moving AI from controlled testing environments into day-to-day workflows.

What typically prevents wealth managers from successfully transitioning AI from pilots to being embedded in operations day-to-day?

Yann Kudelski: There's quite a variety of wealth managers at this stage that are transitioning AI from pilots to embedding it in operations. But what we've seen is, a lot of times it's designed in isolation, for a perfect world with clean data, a narrow scope, and limited exception-handling. The challenge arises then when you embed it into day-to-day operations. You're confronted with the real world – messy data, more fragmented systems, and more complex rules and exceptions. That's usually the biggest challenge – to move from pilot projects to embedding it operationally.

How are wealth managers approaching the design and governance of AI capabilities today, and what do you see as the most effective ways in which firms are addressing those requirements in practice?

YK: Institutions need to think carefully about when to use AI and when to rely on more deterministic rules-set. They have to find the right balance – when to use which tool to tackle what type of problem. That’s the biggest design choice, although it’s usually a combination of both – leveraging AI tools, but also using a traditional deterministic business rule engine, and combining them in the right balance. Another choice is between single-model or multi-model approaches – using the right model for the right problem, either statically or dynamically.

Vlad Magereanu: Models of different natures solve different problems. If we move away from the generative AI space and the current large-language model (LLM) trend, and go into machine-learning models, then a different set of problems can be solved through mixing and matching an LLM with a more tailored machinelearning model. For example, fraud detection uses very specialised models, which in conjunction with an LLM could give better feedback to the outside world and to the end-user.

What data-related challenges most frequently limit progress, and how are firms addressing these limitations in practice?

VM: The biggest problem firms have is the fragmented data from the silos they’ve built over time. The big incumbents have a far more fragmented data landscape than a new neo-bank or other challenger which might have started with a modern infrastructure. This fragmentation is the problem to solve to have more efficient AI use-cases and pilot initiatives, because AI doesn’t have a direct access layer to this data.

How do you overcome this? Well, companies are trying to build so-called data lakes, where they try to bring the data in a uniform format, so it can be consumed in a more consistent way with predictable results. But data lakes might not be suitable for generative AI solutions.

Where do you see the biggest gaps between client-facing innovation and underlying operational or compliance systems?

YK: Institutions have invested heavily on the client-facing side – portals, apps, and specific optimisation within fragmented landscape silos. The biggest gap is in connecting the two and then benefiting from a step-change in efficiency and process automation – having the glue that brings the legacy systems together with the client experience that can then also enable agentic AIdriven workflows, combined with deterministic business rules.

As AI takes on more responsibility, how should firms maintain trust, accountability, and control?

Personalisation is not just a content problem, but also a data and orchestration problem.

VM: That’s a difficult one, because to maintain accountability you need transparency, but currently the observability in the space of LLMs and what they do, it’s not in the best state. There’s research going on, but it’s not there yet. But by building observability into the process, which is AI enhanced, that’s already one step ahead. In our regulated world, financial institutions should still have the human in the loop for now – at least until the guardrails that are built within the models, and in the use-cases themselves, are strong and reliable enough that you can take the human out of the loop and still have a deterministic result, a trusted result, out of this process.

Bridging AI ambition with reality

❝ Regulators need auditability, explainability, and a deterministic result.

And with regulators increasingly focused on outcomes, transparency, and repeatability, how does this shape the way firms design and deploy AI-enabled processes?

VM: I think this ties to what we discussed previously, because regulators need auditability, explainability, and a deterministic result. That’s why at additiv, what we’re doing and what we’re building is a combination of deterministic rules and processes enhanced with AI, to bridge the structured and the unstructured data.

Because, after all, the financial industry is more rule-based than unstructured data-based. But by bridging this gap, for example by understanding regulations from a regulatory paper through AI and applying them through deterministic rules on top of platform – that’s one way to achieve this kind of AI-enabled process.

Maintaining the balance between AI and what their responsibility is, and the deterministic rules which are recognised by the regulators – that’s all about reporting: you need to report the results of your processes.

What makes personalisation hard to achieve at scale? Are firms getting the trade-offs right as they attempt to do so?

YK: First of all, personalisation is not just a content problem, but also a data and orchestration problem. Wealth managers have a significant amount of client data – interaction data, engagement data, preferences, holdings, and transactions. You need to make sense out of all that data together to really personalise the experience for your client. It is a trade-off between superficial personalisation, like relying on one preference and having a superficially personalised experience, but also not to over-engineer the personalisation – it has to still be operationally efficient that you can run it and reap the benefits. And there you have to find the right trade-off between the approaches that you run.

How do you see wealth managers rethinking decisions around buying, building, or partnering for technology, as AI becomes more central to their strategies?

YK: Historically, and in fact still today, especially at the larger end a lot of wealth managers have a tendency to build on their own. But we’re now seeing a tendency to partner more, especially for the foundational platform approaches –connecting everything, having the foundation there, but still building bespoke experiences on top because you have to differentiate yourself.

As firms push AI deeper into decision-making, where do you expect the next architectural bottlenecks to emerge, and how is additiv preparing for them?

VM: The technical architectural bottlenecks are still represented by the limitations of LLMs, the current design and architecture of the foundational models, by limited context, and long-term memory – when they have processes

which spread over multiple steps and multiple days, for example, then you need memory to back it up because LLMs cannot hold much data. Then you have the trade-off between reasoning, how much time AI has to think about the problem, and latency, how fast you want to give the answer to the user. Then, as we discussed earlier, there’s the regulatory explainability of what happens within these processes – that’s still something which is not fully solved.

Then, there’s the multi-model approaches and the trust boundaries – what kind of problem you delegate to which kind of model. That’s an architectural decision, which must be taken on a use-case by use-case basis. What we’re doing here is offering a long-term memory through the additiv platform, holding the state of the system and of transactions, and AI-enabled processes on top of it – which solves the long-term memory problem of such a process. When we are talking about latency versus reasoning depth, then we are choosing our use-cases and applying AI where appropriate. As for regulatory explainability, we build the audit trail which is embedded in our platform, but we also build more observability into what the AI is doing on its own.

By 2030, what will characterise the wealth managers who have used this execution phase well?

YK: It’ll be the wealth managers who look at it as a paradigm shift and reconsider their operating models. Continuing with the same operating model might not be the best choice – those who think about the impact of AI, how it will change the operating model, how it might be made better or more efficient, are the ones who will probably be ahead of the curve in 2030.

Expanding access through digital platforms

An interview with Giovanni Daprà CEO of Moneyfarm

Giovanni Daprà co-founded Moneyfarm in 2011 and has been its CEO since 2013. He spoke with TWM about the company’s journey, the strategic moves it has made along the way, and the changes he is anticipating and preparing for over the next few years.

Tell us about what led you to found Moneyfarm – what gap did you see in the market, and how did your earlier professional experiences help you to identify it?

The gap I saw in the market was the lack of solutions and advice for the mass-affluent space. Even today it’s very difficult for that segment to get advice. I had the idea of a digital platform, with a lower cost-to-serve and a customer price point than the traditional providers – that is what led me to open Moneyfarm and create that solution overlay on top of the traditional do-it-yourself platform.

I had been working in investment banking and building products, so I saw the complexity of the industry and the information asymmetry which is still one of its building blocks. And that led me to push for greater simplification, and to deliver solutions in a different way.

What did the early years of Moneyfarm look like, and how has it grown since then?

The early years were very different. We were pioneers: when we launched, there were just a couple of solutions in the US and the first FinTech wave was very early in its life. We were only recently postfinancial crisis – people were thinking of new models to serve because they understood that the industry was somewhat broken.

The first years were really about the early product development lifecycle. We were trying to understand the market, understand the customer, design the solutions, find our way through the maze of doing a startup. Although we had a clear vision of where we wanted to go, figuring out how to get there was a challenge in the early days – but it was also very fun. Now it's totally different. We have a proven business model and we're managing more than €6.3 billion AUM. So that's a completely different range of complexity, skill-set, and priorities.

What is Moneyfarm’s unique value proposition, and how do you distinguish from other digital and traditional advisory firms?

Moneyfarm’s uniqueness is in blending digital and human delivery with a broad range of solutions. We believe we're one of the only comprehensive wealth partners in the digital space. We offer a range of solutions: guided advice, DIY, tax wrappers, pension consolidation, and saving. I don't think saving, wealth, brokerage, and pension consolidation exist in a single holistic platform anywhere else. What differentiates us is that everything sits on the same digital platform with the ability to access qualified consultants, so we help customers through their entire financial lives. We do that by partnering with the customer, not just by being a platform. That's what distinguishes us from other digital players, and our fully digital model distinguishes us from traditional firms.

A core aspect of Moneyfarm’s model has been the blend of technology with human insight – how has that hybrid approach evolved over its lifetime, and what have the new technologies that have emerged over the last 15 years enabled?

In the last 15 years, improvements in digital interfaces, digital onboarding, and tools for engagement have really allowed us to execute on our hybrid model. Mobile technology, the fact that you can log into the app as many times a day as you like, creates many more touchpoints that allow us to be present for you and your family. Data automation and integration are now easier to implement. Consumers are more open to video calls rather than face-to-face meetings. The combination of technology adoption allows a different level of engagement. And since 2024, we’ve started to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) – that’s a different paradigm, but more for the future than the present.

What strategic moves have most reshaped your business model and goals?

There have been three big moments in Moneyfarm’s history. One is when we expanded into the UK in 2015, after starting in Italy, to build upon our European business: that was a pivotal decision. The other decision was launching a B2B2C proposition with our first customers in Italy. Working with partners, we were able to combine our platform engagement model and technology to enhance distribution. That started in 2018; now we have over €1 billion in the B2B2C channel, and the platform service has really accelerated.

The third big moment was our product expansion between 2022 and 2024. We started with the wealth vertical; then we saw a convergence of brokerage, pension consolidation, and saving. In two years, including through acquisition, we expanded from just being a wealth provider to brokerage and pension consolidation. That gave us scale, but also the ability to allow for broader entry points which allows the platform to grow faster.

❝

We believe we're one of the only comprehensive wealth partners in the digital space.

How have regulatory expectations from the FCA, CONSOB, and others influenced your product design, client engagement, and innovation roadmap?

I always tell the team that the customer should influence more than the regulator: the customer comes first. We want to do what's right for the customer, and then we ensure we meet the regulatory expectation. I think that it's important to embed those regulatory expectations into the design of the product, otherwise you risk finding yourself short and spending time and money to recover. It's an advantage to have a strong framework to embed this into product design very early on. So there is an influence – but I think the customer should influence more.

Simplicity through accessibility

❝

New digital providers create expectations that customers also want in wealth management.

❝ We partner with customers across their entire financial lives.

Where do you see Moneyfarm’s place in the European wealth management market today, and how do you see it growing over the course of the next decade?

I see it as uniquely positioned. We are one of only a few companies to successfully scale in two different geographies, with a broad proposition spanning wealth, savings, brokerage, and pension consolidation.

We are one of very few companies in the digital platforms space that have reached a certain scale. I see this as a continuous opportunity. Digital investing is accelerating, brokerage is accelerating, ETFs are accelerating, and these are all things that we have either pioneered or been participating in for a long time. We have the right skill-set, competencies, and team for success.

What trends in the wealth management sector – including in technology, client behaviour, or regulation – are you anticipating and preparing for, and how do you see those shaping the sector more broadly over the next five years?

I believe there are several big changes that will impact the wealth management business. The first is that people are craving more simplicity, more accessibility. This is not going to change – if anything, new digital providers create expectations that customers also want in wealth management.

The second is the search for empowerment: people want to be more engaged, particularly the younger generation. Post-Covid, post-crypto, people are way more engaged, way more willing to do it themselves than before.

Personalisation is another big trend: even though the needs are similar, people want to be able to personalise and participate in the management of their money.

Another point is that financial life is increasingly complex. Life is becoming more expensive on the one hand; on the other, complexity has increased, and so does the need for advice and guidance. If you don't manage your retirement and pension well, you're not going to be able to buy a house or to afford retirement. That's a critical need, and incumbents are catching up; they're starting to realise that digital is here to stay. We're starting to see digital business models that scale, and that also creates opportunities for B2B2C and for our partnership ecosystem to evolve.

What have been your biggest surprises and most important lessons over the course of Moneyfarm’s lifetime – both in building the business and driving innovation in wealth management more broadly?

I think one of the biggest surprises is that people are still willing to pay a lot for the peace of mind of wealth management services, even face-to-face

advice. I thought originally that would change much faster as people become more savvy and better able to assess the value of those services. The other is the range of competencies needed to run a digital wealth management business – it surprised me how complex wealth management is, and it’s difficult for people not in wealth management to really understand that complexity.

Looking back on your own journey as a co-founder and CEO, how has building Moneyfarm changed the way you personally think about wealth, risk, and long-term decisionmaking – both as a business leader and as an investor?

It hasn't changed a lot because I always had a longterm approach to wealth. Maybe I’ve become more patient because it takes a long time to scale this kind of business, probably more than I envisioned at the beginning. But I always thought about being long-term greedy rather than shortterm greedy. It's about playing the long game and I don't think that has changed.

Showcase

Wealth Dynamix

Why the key to efficient onboarding is to focus on the wider journey

The client onboarding experience for many firms is the first time that a client comes ‘face-to-face’ with the processes and operations of a wealth management firm or private bank. The quality of this experience can set the tone for the ongoing relationship and the client’s expectations, but with a third of firms taking longer than three months to onboard clients, it can also represent a missed opportunity.

What does ‘good’ look like?

A positive onboarding experience creates trust and eliminates friction: clients are provided with clarity on what is needed and where they are; staff only ask and record information once; and the process proceeds smoothly across all departments and steps. It’s defined by providing not just a single client with this seamless journey, but consistently providing this to every client.

A key differentiator for high-net-worth and wealth management relationships is that these, unlike much of financial services today, are centred on the role of relationship managers (RMs). A client’s journey is thus impacted by both the user experience provided by digital tools, as well as the human experience provided by human staff.

At Wealth Dynamix, we are often asked what the key performance indicators (KPIs) are across the onboarding experience. There are several key metrics to focus on:

• 100 percent ‘right-first-time’ rate for clients: ensure your clients are never asked for the same data or documents twice, through intelligent forms and document logics.

• 100 percent ‘right-first-time’ rate for compliance and operations: minimise the number of times that compliance or operations need to return to the front office for missing and/or inconsistent information.

• 0 percent of data being re-typed: remove duplicated effort across internal staff and clients, and improve consistency of data.

• <1-da y duration: onboard low and standard-risk clients in under one day, where appropriate – ensuring your processes are as free of friction as possible.

• Minimal client complaints and strong feedback: however client satisfaction is measured, the objective should always be to provide a seamless process.

• Zero compliance issues: remove the risk of needing to offboard a client or re-rate their risk post-onboarding.

When does onboarding start and end?

When engaging firms, we often see that understanding of onboarding varies. For some firms, onboarding starts at the initial introduction; for others, it’s the process once the account opening forms are signed. The end of the journey can be seen as the issuing of an account number; for others it’s the successful completion and investment of all a client’s transfers.

At Wealth Dynamix, we see onboarding in its broadest possible sense, starting with the initial introduction and ending with the client successfully invested and ongoing proactive engagement with their RM.

Our reasoning is simple: achieving these outcomes and KPIs requires the entire client experience to be considered and managed holistically, while also ensuring a single, clear journey for client data.

The importance of data

The collection of client information begins long before a client formally agrees to sign. It starts with the initial referral and deepens through the many interactions, meetings, and proposals that follow. This information is then carried forward into the know-your-customer (KYC) approval process, contractual documentation, welcome letters and beyond.

At Wealth Dynamix, we focus on a key principle: capture once and use many, to ensure that staff are never re-keying information across the wider journey. Achieving this requires sophisticated data management, standardised integrations, client and staff portals, as well as dynamic rules engines.

Together, these can help ensure that:

• The amount and type of information to be captured is based on your rules and the client’s specific case – such as their role, products, jurisdictions, and professional status.

• Information is validated and compared to ensure consistency when it is captured.

• Details are reused where individuals or firms play multiple roles.

• Clear approval flows ensure that client information is checked and reviewed.

• Rules engines run automatically on the captured information – removing spreadsheets and separate calculations.

• Standard anti-money laundering (AML) and risk tools are pre-integrated – again removing key re-typing points.

• Documents are generated and automatically sent for signature seamlessly.

• Complex scenarios, such as multi-level trusts or cross-booked clients, are fully supported without the need to re-enter data.

AI and the end of forms

The growth of artificial intelligence (AI), and particularly large language models (LLMs), provides new opportunities to not just improve onboarding, but to revolutionise it. At Wealth Dynamix, we see this as a shift towards frictionless, form-free onboarding, where clients are no longer required to navigate and complete lengthy documents. Instead, AI intelligently extracts and completes key client information, validates its consistency, and prompts users only where support or clarification is needed.

At its core are our KYC extraction agents, designed to identify, validate, and upload KYC information from any unstructured source – including staff notes, call transcripts, emails, and submitted documentation. By leveraging the rich information captured early in the client journey, these tools pre-populate key onboarding data, while staff and client digital portals ensure a true ‘humanin-the-loop’ approach, enabling verification and completion of any missing details, which are then audited and evaluated using clear and structured approaches. This need for certainty and structure is key, because regulators require clear, auditable justification for client approval, not simply an answer generated by ChatGPT.

Further along the journey, KYC Coherence Agents support compliance teams by identifying the originating source of key information –such as source of wealth – and by highlighting inconsistencies across structured data, client interactions, and supporting documentation.

The effective use of these tools depends on a robust data and process framework – ensuring that, even as agents operate during onboarding, all information is captured, audited, and assessed in a controlled and structured manner. This level of certainty is essential: regulators require a clear, auditable rationale for client approval, not opaque or unverifiable AI-generated explanations.

Efficient onboarding is not about fixing individual steps in isolation, but about managing the entire client journey from end to end.

Robert

Conclusion

Efficient onboarding is not about fixing individual steps in isolation, but about managing the entire client journey end to end. For private banks and wealth managers, taking a holistic view of the client lifecycle is essential to removing friction, eliminating re-keying, and delivering a consistent, high-quality experience for both clients and relationship teams. Data is central to this approach. When captured once, governed correctly, and reused across the lifecycle, it enables faster onboarding, stronger controls, and greater operational confidence. Combined with responsible use of AI and clear human oversight, firms can simplify onboarding without compromising regulatory certainty.

Ultimately, the firms that succeed will be those that treat onboarding as an integral part of the wider client relationship, creating a scalable, compliant foundation for long-term growth.

Robert Roome Chief Strategy Officer Wealth Dynamix

Email: robert.roome@wealth-dynamix.com

Website: www.wealth-dynamix.com

Solution Showcase / Client Lifecycle Management (CLM)

Our company

Wealth Dynamix delivers a unified, digital-first platform to wealth managers and private banks, fuelling AUM growth, bolstering efficiency, and ensuring compliance. Catering to diverse entities, from boutique investment firms to global mass affluent wealth managers, we enhance the complete client journey. Leveraging data-centric tools, automation, and dynamic portals, our Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions transition firms from manual operations to tech-driven models. This pivot accentuates value-driven tasks and fosters deeper client engagements, refining each stage from prospect identification to wealth succession.

Our solution

CLMi is a cutting-edge, SaaS solution tailored specifically for wealth managers and private banks, used by all departments as a single solution to automate client processes. As a mobilecentric platform, CLMi is accessible through remote and in-person operations. CLMi creates a holistic approach to client management, automating tasks and leveraging a data-driven process engine – eliminating redundancy and providing invaluable insights for firms using intuitive dashboards. CLMi is used by firms with between 10 and 1,000 users across different regions including the UK, EU, Middle East and Asia-Pacific.

The breadth of the solution is across prospecting, onboarding, and client servicing. These modules can be delivered separately or in combination. CLMi can help firms grow revenue, boost operational efficiency, and deepen client relationships. Deployable in a few weeks and with prebuilt interfaces to AML, KYC, and back-office systems, CLMi takes away the need for long and involved projects.

Features & benefits

CLMi is a cloud-based Client Lifecycle Management platform built for wealth managers and private banks. It integrates workflows, dashboards, and KYC/AML tools with mobile access and secure collaboration features – streamlining prospecting, onboarding, and ongoing client servicing. Its automation ensures compliance is embedded into processes, while role-based dashboards and client portals provide a 360-degree view of relationships.

Powered by an optimised data foundation, CLMi leverages AI and machine learning to deliver personalised recommendations, prioritise next-best actions, and automate tasks such as document validation, speech-totext transcription, and sentiment analysis. These capabilities help advisers focus on client engagement while ensuring compliance.

By centralising client data, CLMi reduces onboarding times from weeks to a single day and cuts servicing costs by up to one-sixth. The result is an intelligent, scalable platform that drives efficiency, enhances compliance, and empowers firms to deliver highly personalised client experiences at scale.

Use cases

CLMi adds value across many use cases; one example is explained below.

The end-to-end onboarding module deployed for one of our tier-one banking clients drastically reduced their onboarding timelines. Integrating directly with advanced screening tools and negating redundant data inputs across platforms, we accelerated their screening efficiency by over tenfold. This precise system fortified compliance teams' confidence in screening accuracy, notably reducing iterative clarifications per case.

Technology & architecture

CLMi embodies a modern, cloudcentric architecture, leveraging cutting-edge technology to deliver a SaaS solution hosted on Microsoft Azure Cloud by Wealth Dynamix. Built on a wealth-specific data model, with an intuitive user experience and extensive integration capabilities, CLMi aligns seamlessly with client lifecycle requirements. Its flexible design and open APIs enable easy configuration and seamless integration with existing infrastructure. Featuring three secure public access points, the CLMi web application, API, and static service, protected by Cloudflare’s Web Application Firewall, CLMi ensures both robustness and security.

Differentiators

The CLMi platform is purpose-built for wealth managers and private banks, drawing on more than 13 years of industry experience. Its data model is designed to support complex high-net-worth (HNW) relationships, including trusts and corporate entities. CLMi offers over 100 pre-built, best-practice intelligent workflows, dashboards, and reports, while retaining the flexibility to extend and customise them. This drives operational efficiency, reduces rekeying, and enables real-time business oversight. Its intuitive, user-friendly design eliminates the need for lengthy training, allowing advisers to focus on revenue-generating activities.

Users

CLMi is used across all departments within wealth management and private banking firms, providing a single, integrated solution to automate client processes for the front office, operations, support, compliance, marketing, and management teams. Its adaptable workflows power role-based dashboards that deliver relevant insights and timely alerts. CLMi also enables digital engagement with both prospects and clients, while seamless integrations and real-time data access are supported through its open API. By digitising workflows end to end, CLMi drives greater operational efficiency and fosters collaboration across the organisation.

connect@wealth-dynamix.com

Clients 21-50

Client location Asia, Caribbean, Middle East, Oceania, Western Europe, North America

Client type

External asset managers, Bank wealth managers, Family offices, Financial advisers, Trust & fiduciary, Discretionary fund managers

lionel.sancenot@wealth-dynamix.com Lionel Sancenot

Chief Sales Officer Wealth Dynamix

/Deep Dive

The future of wealth management

AI, technology, and the evolution of global advisory

By Abhijeet Singh Hazare

Senior Vice President and Head of Sales

Intellect AI

The wealth management industry is grappling with a rare convergence of pressures and opportunities. Demographic shifts, regulatory scrutiny, and the digitisation of client expectations are colliding with one of the most transformative technologies of our era: artificial intelligence (AI).

Generational wealth transfer is intensifying the stakes, with industry estimates suggesting that trillions of dollars in assets will move to younger generations by 2030. These are clients who expect not only trusted advice, but also seamless digital experiences comparable to those offered by leading consumer technology platforms.

Regional trends: different paths, one common destination

While the final goal is an AI-powered future, the journey is defined by distinct regional regulatory and market dynamics which create clear divergences of strategic focus.

Asia-Pacific (APAC)

Rapid growth and tech-driven scale

Meanwhile, regulators are tightening oversight –demanding greater transparency, more rigorous compliance, and demonstrable client outcomes. Firms that fail to modernise risk being overwhelmed by complexity. The winning firms will be those that blend digital efficiency with personal trust – scaling personalisation while maintaining the human touch.

❝

The winning firms will be those that blend digital efficiency with personal trust - scaling personalisation while maintaining the human touch.

Few regions illustrate the urgency of transformation as clearly as APAC. With a fast-growing population of wealthy individuals, especially in China, India, and Southeast Asia, the region is expected to become the largest pool of wealth globally by the end of the decade.

Hong Kong and Singapore are consolidating their positions as cross-border wealth hubs, and firms are increasingly deploying AI in onboarding and KnowYour-Customer/Anti-Money Laundering (KYC/ AML) checks to reduce friction and accelerate client service. Portfolio personalisation is also becoming mainstream, with providers experimenting with AIdriven analytics to recommend strategies tailored to granular client profiles.

Platforms such as WealthForce.ai reflect this momentum, offering examples of how firms can combine onboarding automation, risk monitoring, and portfolio personalisation within a single AInative environment.

Middle East

Digital-first trust

Firms in the Middle East are embracing digital-first models, supported by younger demographics and government-led digital transformation agendas. Although precise adoption metrics vary, studies from Deloitte and EY highlight that clients in the region are generally more open to AI-enabled advice than counterparts in Europe, reflecting a cultural readiness to embrace innovation.

Leading banks in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are embedding AI into mobile-first wealth platforms, using automation for compliance and leveraging natural language models to improve client engagement. With less reliance on legacy systems than in Europe, the region is positioned to scale innovation quickly.

Europe

Early-stage, regulation-heavy

Europe tells a different story. According to McKinsey, most AI initiatives are focused on efficiency and compliance automation, while broader client-facing deployments remain limited. Workforce readiness is a key challenge, with many advisers and managers lacking the digital confidence to integrate AI into daily workflows.

Yet seeds of transformation are visible. Pilot projects using agentic AI models capable of operating with limited human oversight are being tested to improve personalisation in onboarding and portfolio reviews. Still, unless European firms accelerate from experimentation to scaled deployment, they risk falling behind the global curve.

intensity; talent acquisition Achieving seamless, compliant cross-border scale MEA

Government vision and digital-first culture

UK/EU Compliance and cost pressure

KYC/AML, portfolio personalisation

Agentic AI, mobile-first platforms, compliance automation

Back-office efficiency; regulatory reporting

Outdated systems; regulatory fragmentation lag (historical)

Regulatory friction (DORA/AI Act); legacy fragmentation

Structural leapfrogging via AI-native systems and national strategy buy-in

Reframing compliance as operational resilience (horizontal risk management)

Unless European firms accelerate from experimentation to scaled deployment, they risk falling behind the global curve.

Technology and AI trends

Across all regions, several themes are emerging:

AI for cost efficiency

McKinsey projects that AI could reduce operational costs in wealth management by up to 40 percent. Automation of manual workflows, intelligent document processing, and proactive compliance monitoring are critical drivers.

Personalised client journeys

Machine learning is moving the industry beyond generic segmentation toward highly individualised engagement – including dynamic portfolios, realtime nudges, and curated content.

The most successful firms will not simply adopt AI tools; they will embed AI into their operating fabric, ensuring that it orchestrates data, workflows, and client engagement.

Modular tech stacks

Firms are abandoning monolithic platforms in favour of modular, cloud-based ecosystems. WealthForce.ai is one example of how modularity enables experimentation with AI while scaling seamlessly.

Risk and compliance

AI is becoming indispensable in fraud detection, AML, and regulatory reporting – areas where both speed and accuracy are mission-critical.

Growth & innovation Redefining client experience: new revenue models Hyper-personalisation for mass affluent, next best action (NBA) Increased wallet share; net new money (NNM)

Adviser productivity

Risk & resilience

Reallocating human capital to strategy; deepening trust AI co-pilots, automated reporting, data synthesis

Minimising exposure; regulatory adherence

Time freed for client interaction (hours/week)

Real-time fraud monitoring, DORA/AI act governance checks

Reduced regulatory fines; enhanced digital resilience

High performers focus on transformative change

Reduces time crunching data by 20-30%

Essential for scaling high-risk AI models

Table 2: AI value segmentation: efficiency versus transformative growth

What’s working, and what isn’t

The industry's AI journey is uneven. AI’s application in onboarding, advisory, and real-time risk monitoring are proving successful, reducing friction and directly improving client experiences. But fragmentation remains a major obstacle.

Many firms still operate with disconnected systems – customer relationship management (CRM), custodians, portfolio tools –creating inefficiencies and diluting the client journey. Regulatory adaptation is also slow, with firms hesitant to scale AI initiatives until frameworks are clearer.

A simple way to frame the contrast: Working

Digital onboarding, proactive compliance monitoring, AI-driven personalisation.

Failing

Siloed technology, slow regulatory adaptation, and workforce skill gaps.

The winners will double down on what works while ruthlessly addressing the barriers.

Strategic ambition Low modularity (fragmented / legacy)

Transformative focus (growth)

Fragmented experimenters (high ambition, low capability) –

Risk: Pilots fail to scale; data is siloed, actively diluting the client journey. (Common in early APAC/MEA highgrowth firms)

Action: Urgent platform modernisation to support cross-border scale.

High modularity (integrated / cloud-native)

Transformative leaders (high ambition, high capability) –

Mandate: Redesign workflows for growth; scale hyper-personalisation via AI Co-pilots. (Target state for APAC/MEA)

Outcome: Capture 9% APAC CAGR by leveraging modularity for Agentic AI and Next Best Experience (NBX).

Efficiency focus (compliance)

Legacy resistors (High risk, low performance) –

Risk: Becoming overwhelmed by cost and regulation and marginalised by agile competitors. (Prevalent in parts of the UK/EU with deep legacy)

Action: Existential imperative is strategic digital adoption to meet MiFID II/DORA baseline compliance.

Efficient modernisers (Sustainable efficiency) –

Mandate: Pivot AI investment beyond costcutting (25-40% savings) to drive new revenue. (Common in UK/EU, focusing on DORA/AI Act resilience)

Outcome: Turning compliance efficiency into operational resilience and horizontal risk management.

Table 3: AI maturity matrix

Actionable takeaways for banks and wealth managers

To navigate the complexity of regional markets and technological demands, wealth leaders should benchmark their current position against a clear AI maturity matrix. This quadrant frames the strategic challenge based on two critical factors: the structural ability to execute (technological modularity) and the ambition of the AI strategy (transformation vs. efficiency).

• Pivot AI investment to growth: The priority must shift, from achieving the 25 to 40 percent cost-reduction baseline, to driving revenue through transformative personalisation for key segments like the mass affluent.

• Dismantle the fragmentation tax: Aggressively move to modular, cloud-based platforms to unify data and workflows. This structural change is the only way to scale personalisation and satisfy the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)’s mandate for horizontal risk management in the EU.

• Digitise the gateway: Streamlined, AIenabled onboarding sets the tone for the entire client relationship, reducing friction and accelerating time-to-revenue.

• Integrate compliance as advantage: View regulations as a competitive catalyst for automating compliance, risk, and fraud detection, making processes proactive and continuous.

• Transform the Workforce: Invest in continuous upskilling to close the digital confidence gap. Equip advisers with AI copilots so the 20 to 30 percent of liberated time can be reinvested into high-value strategic advisory, deepening client trust.

The definitive mandate: mastering the next horizon of advisory

The era of incremental change in wealth management has passed. As this analysis confirms, AI and advanced technology are not merely tools for organisational optimisation, but the core structural foundation upon which future growth will be built. The global industry is now defined by a clear binary choice: either evolve the operating model to seamlessly integrate digital intelligence with human judgment, or face irrelevance.

• For leaders in APAC, the mandate is clear: structural overhaul is necessary to capture the 9 percent CAGR opportunity, demanding modular platforms that facilitate compliant, cross-border scale.

• In MEA, the velocity of governmentbacked digital initiatives requires firms to accelerate beyond legacy systems to adopt true Agentic AI models, establishing a digital-first client trust.

• In the UK and Europe, the focus on DORA and the AI Act must be viewed as an advantage – a compelling pressure to build the most resilient and governed operational architecture globally, turning compliance into a competitive moat.

Ultimately, the decisive factor for the next decade will be the leap from fragmented experimenter to transformative leader. Winners will be those which recognise that achieving the 25 to 40 percent operational efficiency dividend is merely the prerequisite to the larger mission: unlocking adviser capacity, scaling hyper-personalisation, and delivering a future of advisory that is globally agile, structurally resilient, and deeply, personally human.

AI speed, human judgement

An interview with Murali Nadarajah Global Head of R&D & AI at Eton Solutions

Eton Solutions’ Murali Nadarajah tells TWM how human-governed AI models can scale family office operations and what he’s learned from 40 years of working in artificial intelligence.

Tell us about yourself and your role at Eton Solutions

I’m the Global Head of R&D & AI at Eton Solutions, and I’ve worked in artificial intelligence (AI) for about 40 years. Honestly, about 36 of those were what we call the AI winters—lots of promise but very little real-world adoption. The advantage of living through those cycles is that you learn what actually works in enterprise environments and what doesn’t. Today we’re finally at the point where AI can move from experimentation to operational impact.

Tell us about Eton Solutions and its offering in this space

Wealth management historically lacked a true enterprise operating platform. Eton Solutions was founded in 2015 by our CEO, Rob Mallernee, with a mission to build the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for wealth management. A decade later, we manage over US$1.4 trillion in assets on our platform, covering investment accounting, partnership accounting, tax, and trust – the full operational backbone of a modern family office.

At the core is AtlasFive, our system of record. That’s critical because in wealth management, trust and auditability are non-negotiable. AtlasFive provides the single source of fiduciary-grade truth – deterministic, governed, and reliable. In 2020, we brought AI in through machine learning and expert systems. In early 2023, we added generative AI with EtonAITM.

But we didn’t just add AI – we built a system of action that focuses on delivering business outcomes. Think of AtlasFive as the institutional memory, and EtonAITM as the operational brain. It turns trusted data into decisions, workflows, and insight. AI without a system of record is guesswork; anchored to fiduciary data, it becomes transformative.

That’s the journey – from system of record to intelligent system of action, and now toward an AI-native operating model.

What types of clients do you work with and target?

We started with family offices, which remain our core segment. As the platform matured, we expanded to adjacent segments that face similar operational complexity – wealth owners, business managers, trust companies, and private equity firms. We’ve grown so we can handle clients from US$25 million to multi-billion-dollar family enterprises.

What components make up the EtonAITM solution?

EtonAITM’s two core components are the copilot and agentic automation. The co-pilot is the conversational interface – users simply ask it to execute tasks, whether that’s updating a beneficiary or running a query. It interprets, acts in AtlasFive or connected systems, and returns results – streamlining human decision-making.

The agentic layer is a suite of autonomous agents that handle repeatable workflows – retrieving fund documents, classifying transactions, and routing them downstream – operating independently but within strict governance. Together, the co-pilot enables guided action. The agents deliver scalable execution.

The key shift is that AI is no longer just an interface – it’s becoming an execution layer that can complete operational work across systems.

What problems were you trying to solve when you founded EtonAITM?

AtlasFive is a powerful system of record, processing investment, accounting, tax, and trust data with fiduciary precision. But even the best system of record doesn’t complete the work. It stores truth but it doesn’t reason.

EtonAITM closes that gap. It’s an AI reasoning and decisioning engine layered on AtlasFive that doesn’t just surface data – it executes workflows and delivers outcomes – reconciliations, allocations, validations, approvals – the operational heavy lifting. For clients, this is critical because scale in wealth management doesn’t break at the ledger, it breaks in the human bottleneck. Month-end close, capital call processing, transaction validation – these are judgement-heavy, repetitive processes that consume time and create operational risk.

That’s where our ‘Maker–Checker–Learner’ model becomes strategic. AI acts as the Maker –drafting, classifying, preparing. The human remains the Checker – providing fiduciary oversight and approval. The Learner captures corrections and edge cases, reinforcing them into the system.

Over time, the platform learns from exceptions, allocation nuances, and entity structures – so fewer repeat errors, less rework, and compounding efficiency gains. This model mirrors existing financial governance structures – separation of duties, review, and continuous learning. For customers, this isn’t just automation. It’s adaptive operational intelligence – real scale without losing governance.

❝

Today we're finally at the point where AI can move from experimentation to operational impact.

More output; better judgement, broader capability

❝ AI without a system of record is guesswork; with it, it becomes transformative.

What are the key characteristics and benefits of EtonAITM?

First: productivity. We deliver a 30 percent improvement at minimum; in some workflows – like approvals or document processing – we’ve seen eight-times gains. Two-hour tasks now take five minutes. Monthend close and mark-to-market are prime examples. The point isn’t incremental efficiency – it’s stepchange acceleration. AI changes the economics of operations. Work that previously required teams can now be executed as intelligent workflows.

The second is decision quality. EtonAITM doesn’t just speed up approvals; it enriches them. A capital call decision, for example, can be evaluated instantly against commitments, historical

allocations, fund performance, liquidity positions, and contractual terms. Instead of acting on one or two data points, clients act on fullcontext intelligence. It means faster and better decisions.

Finally, expansion of capability. We call it eliminating the ‘embarrassment tax’. AI gives teams the ability to interrogate tax filings, partnership structures, or performance drivers before speaking to external advisers. You’re not replacing experts – you’re showing up to the conversation informed. That elevates the quality of governance across the organisation.

The impact is clear: more output; better judgement; broader capability – all without adding headcount.

What have you learned from your AI deployments in recent years?

That enterprise AI deals in probabilities, not absolutes. If the AI is 85 percent correct, that’s powerful – but only if you know exactly which 15 percent needs human correction. The process must be built so that every decision point is transparent and auditable – you know what the AI got right, and exactly where a human steps in.

That’s why enterprise AI isn’t like a B2C chatbot. Chatbots offer answers, but enterprise AI must deliver governed outcomes. EtonAITM was built for B2B: every step is explainable, auditable, and scalable. We learned that success comes from combining AI’s speed with human judgement at the right moments. So, AI doesn’t replace governance –it makes it scalable and smarter every step of the way. Enterprise AI isn’t about perfect answers – it’s about governed outcomes.

What's next on the roadmap for Eton Solutions?

We’re currently rolling out EtonAITM 2.0 to deliver a much broader range of completed operational outcomes, not just task-level assistance. The industry is moving from systems that record activity to systems that complete work autonomously. Historically, our AI capabilities were concentrated within AtlasFive, helping automate activities such as document processing, data extraction, and transaction handling. The next phase expands this capability so that EtonAITM can coordinate work across the systems family offices rely on –investment platforms, CRM systems, document repositories, and external data sources.

The goal is to move to AI that completes entire operational jobs – daily data updates, assembling reports, reconciling transactions, organising documents, or month-end close support. As automated outcomes increase, operations teams will spend less time on manual coordination and exception handling and more on oversight, decision-making, and governance – ensuring

accuracy, reviewing exceptions, and managing the increasingly complex financial environments that family offices operate in.

So, the roadmap is about delivering more operational outcomes through AI, while enabling people to concentrate on higher-level activities that require judgement, control, and accountability.

What trends do you see shaping the wealth management sector and how is Eton Solutions supporting them?

For decades, competitive advantage in wealth management came from owning proprietary data. Today, most firms have access to similar data sources. Value has shifted to orchestrating that data using AI. The move from simple AI assistants to agentic AI operating models is key. Earlier systems summarised information; today AI can execute multi-step operational workflows – such as data aggregation, reconciliation, reporting, and document processing. EtonAITM acts as an operational intelligence layer, completing work across the family office rather than supporting individual tasks.

Another major trend is the ‘unified client brain’: consolidated views of clients across investments, entities, documents, and life events, enabling personalised service at scale. AtlasFive, combined with EtonAITM, integrates operational data, documents, and workflows into a unified environment where intelligence is applied consistently across the client relationship.

As wealth becomes more mobile, firms need systems that can manage complexity while maintaining transparency and compliance. This is where AtlasFive and EtonAITM come together: AtlasFive provides the operational system of record, while EtonAITM provides the intelligence layer that helps manage workflows and decisions across that environment. Success will be defined less by who owns the most data and more by who can manage complexity with the greatest transparency and trust.

/Behind the Scenes

Inside First Rate

FIntroducing

First Rate: an independent WealthTech provider blending culture, stability, and scalable global solutions

irst Rate is not the largest company in WealthTech, nor the most heavily funded. But more than three decades after its founding, it has carved a distinctive position in the global wealth management technology landscape defined as much by its culture and ownership philosophy as by its software and solutions.

Headquartered in Arlington, Texas, First Rate was founded in 1991 by Trina and Dave Stone to combine technical pragmatism with personal convictions. They sought to solve a practical problem – fragmented performance reporting systems, often tied to specific accounting platforms and difficult to scale across complex portfolios. First Rate built a calculation and reporting engine agnostic to accounting systems and capable of supporting both institutional and private client accounts at scale.

That foundation still anchors the business today, but the company has evolved into a broader global WealthTech partner – providing reporting, data aggregation, portfolio intelligence, trading and rebalancing, alternative asset management tools, and managed infrastructure services. Today First Rate serves around 350 firms with roughly 225 employees worldwide, working directly with financial institutions and through technology partners.

Independence as a strategy

It frames this stability as a practical benefit for clients: predictable contracts, leadership continuity, and product development driven by user needs rather than investor timelines.

This positioning shapes client relationships. First Rate describes itself as “privately held, entrepreneurially driven” and focused on long-term partnerships – an approach that resonates with wealth managers wary of frequent platform migrations of shifting ownership among technology providers.

One of the ways First Rate defines itself is by insisting on independence. In a sector marked by private equity consolidation and vendor acquisitions, the firm emphasises that it is privately held through a long-term trust structure – not for sale, and not open to private equity investments. “First Rate will remain an independent company, with only our clients, future clients, and partners as external influences,” the company told TWM.

The partnership mindset appears in its distribution model as well. Alongside direct engagements with banks, wealth managers, family officers, and advisers, the company also delivers its services through long-standing partnered integrations with leading industry accounting platforms and embedding performance within their portals.

Lead by doing the right thing always

Reality-based technology

Although First Rate has expanded its product set over time, its reputation remains closely tied to the performance measurement and reporting functions central to client trust in wealth management. The firm’s CORE reporting platform, for example, handles multi-currency portfolios, complex asset classes, and high account volumes –integrating across front, middle, and back office workflows.

Many client engagements arise from organisational complexity rather than greenfield innovation. Typical scenarios include banks merging systems after acquisitions, trust businesses struggling with alternative asset reporting, or wealth firms consolidating multiple vendors. First Rate positions its technology as an operational unifier: standardising calculations, automating workflows, and improving data consistency across departments.

A culture that stands out

WealthTech companies often emphasise innovation or scale. First Rate talks as much about values. It employs vocabulary that’s rare in the wealth management lexicon. Its internal philosophy centres on the principles of “love, give, serve, enjoy”, which guide leadership and employees. Its motto is “Lead by doing the right thing always”.

It expresses that orientation through philanthropy as well as business. Employees collectively donate around 10 percent of annual revenue to community causes, supporting hundreds of organisations each year. Staff participate in volunteer projects too, including building homes alongside partners and clients, empowered by an internal culture that prioritises work/life balance.

For supporters, this culture contributes to strong employee engagement and client relationships which flourish over the long term. It also marks First Rate out as a company that’s willing define success in broader terms than financial metrics alone.

“ First Rate positions its technology as an operational unifier: standardising calculations, automating workflows, and improving data consistency across departments. “

A global footprint

First Rate’s evolution from a US performance reporting specialist into a global WealthTech provider has shaped how it works with clients. The company now operates across multiple regions, with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, India, Chile, and elsewhere – giving it a four-continent presence. This footprint allows First Rate to combine centralised technology development with local expertise that adapts to regulatory requirements, client expectations, and operating models around the world.

First Rate’s regional hubs support around-the-clock service for institutions managing global portfolios. Expansion has been deliberate, including acquisitions such as a Chilean WealthTech platform to build a Latin American presence and seed locally run distribution hubs.

More broadly, its leadership frames global expansion as part of its client value proposition, enabling wealth managers to operate across borders with consistent data, reporting standards, and technology infrastructure. As portfolios and client relationships become increasingly international, its combination of global scale and local proximity has become a practical differentiator.

Navigating a changing market

First Rate operates in a competitive and rapidly evolving environment. Wealth managers face pressure to deliver more sophisticated client experiences, integrate alternative investments, and harness data analytics while cutting costs and meeting regulatory expectations. The vendor landscape is crowded, ranging from global enterprise software providers to specialised fintech startups.

First Rate is neither. It’s large enough with the global footprint to support major institutions, but small enough to present itself as responsive and relationship-focused. Its challenge mirrors that of many mid-sized technology firms – sustaining purposeful innovation while competing with the bigger players’ resources and startups’ agility.

The response includes investment in new product lines, artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, and early-stage ventures, alongside continued enhancement of its core reporting and data platforms. It’s also planning to expand its capabilities and global reach through new solutions and partnerships. But leadership insists that won’t come at the cost of neglecting its independence and values-driven identity.

“ As portfolios and client relationships become increasingly international, its combination of global scale and local proximity has become a practical differentiator. “

First Rate is an unusual presence in WealthTech. Its story is more about endurance than disruption: building systems that financial institutions rely on, relationships that last decades, and a corporate identity shaped as much by philosophy as by software.

US, Canada, UK, Chile, India, Singapore

Client Type(s)

Retail and private bank wealth managers; single- and multi-family offices; financial advisers; insurance; trust & fiduciary, outsourced CIO services; digital wealth platforms, FinTechs, WealthTechs

Solutions

Client reporting and integration; alt data management; managed hosting; AI solutions; data aggregation; trading and rebalancing; alternative investments; client billing and invoicing; custom solutions

Alternative asset data management Case study

A leading US bank partnered with First Rate to modernise and automate its alternative investment operations to support scaling. It sought a more efficient way to retrieve fund statements, extract investment data, and deliver timely insights to advisers while maintaining strong operational controls.

Through First Rate’s Alts Data Management platform, the bank implemented automated workflows to retrieve documents from fund manager portals, email, and repositories. Intelligent data extraction and normalisation capture capital calls, distributions, valuations, and transactions and deliver them into reporting and accounting systems.

Today, First Rate processes more than 50,000 alternative investment statements annually for the bank. Automation has reduced manual document handling, accelerated reconciliation, and improved operational visibility.

Operating on an exception-based model, back office teams now spend 70 to 90 percent less time on data entry and more time on oversight, reconciliation, and higher-value tasks –accelerating reconciliation and book-close cycles by 30 to 50 percent.

With clean, normalised data flowing into downstream systems, advisers access to portfolio insights across public and private investments faster, enabling client insights up to three times sooner. A flexible data ingestion framework supports new fund managers, document types, and reporting requirements.

“First Rate is one of the only vendors that we work with that is proactive, does what they say, and hits deadlines. We are grateful to work with the PS team and all of the Data Services team members. I can’t wait to hit the other deliverables with you guys. You make my job easier and for that I thank you.”

By automating the complexity of alternative investment data management, First Rate enables wealth management organisations to improve operational efficiency, deliver insights to advisers faster, and improve the client experience.

First Rate’s Alts Data Management platfom

Client A leading US bank

50,000 alternative investment statements annually

70-90% less time on data entry

30-50% accelerated reconciliation and book-close cycle Solution

Human-centric innovation

An interview with Ahmad El-Katib

Chief

Product Officer at First Rate

Ahmad El-Katib has been First Rate’s Chief Product Officer for two years since February 2024; he joined the company in 2023 as Managing Director, Performance & Integration. He is based in Dallas, Texas.

How do you see First Rate’s core value proposition evolving in response to increased competition from large tech companies and FinTech startups targeting wealth managers?

The market is certainly getting more crowded. But wealth managers don't just need new technology, they need solutions to fit their complex operating environment. Big tech companies typically bring in scale; startups bring in speed. First Rate solutions do both, because we focus on depth, trust, and integration. We are built to handle scale, we're small enough to be nimble, and can adapt and provide solutions for our clients. We're evolving by connecting performance reporting, analytics, and client experience into one ecosystem.

If there’s something that our product suite doesn’t offer, we love partnerships and integrating with other providers – that’s our open architecture mentality. Clients really want innovation that works; they don't typically look for an all-in-one solution. They want solutions for each part of the process to be innovative, to deliver what they need for their businesses.

Many wealth management firms are debating how best to integrate AI and automation into client reporting and advisory workflows. Based on your experience, what are the most meaningful ways technology can enhance the relationship between clients and their human advisers?

AI works best when it enhances the human side instead of trying to replace it. Advisers can still be the centre of the relationship because clients want context and judgment, not just pure data – those are some of the intangibles that come with the relationship side. The biggest difference of technology is in removing manual effort, as a supporter of the adviser and providing a better experience to the clients.

A lot of reporting preparation, data validation, and data analysis can be automated. Advisers appreciate focusing on more meaningful discussions instead of spending time on administrative duties. AI helps translate complex performance into clear explanations: the more transparency and confidence clients and investors have, the more willing they are to do business with those advisers. I truly believe AI can help advisers get more efficient and focus on the right things; but I also think it's going to empower them to gain more business.

Wealth managers often struggle with fragmented data across custodians, alternative assets, and client sources. How does your platform approach data governance and quality to support both operational risk management and strategic insight generation?

This is our comfort zone. Data fragmentation is one of the biggest challenges wealth managers face today. We see it in the US, in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, we see it with data in multi-custodian situations, alternatives, client-supplied information, or pulled from warehouses for the bigger enterprise banks.

Our approach starts with aggregation. We have two paths: structured data aggregation, and unstructured-to-structured normalisation that puts data into a consistent, usable format. It transforms unstructured inputs into structured data which can be better governed, enables defined workflows, and powers our applications. We have quality controls, auditability, and automation to reduce the risk that comes with data reconciliation. Our AI-powered data aggregation product achieves 90 to 95 percent accuracy through the system itself, and we also have data analysts to bridge the remaining gaps. It's one of the most powerful things that we do for our clients.

❝

Big tech companies typically bring in scale; startups bring in speed. First Rate solutions do both, because we focus on depth, trust, and integration.

Ahmad El-Katib, CPO, First Rate

As investors demand transparent and personalised experiences, how do you balance quantitative performance reporting with delivering narrative, actionable insights that clients understand and value?

Performance data is always going to be important, but numbers alone don’t create understanding. Clients want context and clarity; they want to understand what those numbers mean, what they stand for, and how they align with their values. We are seeing a shift from static reports towards more dynamic storytelling.

We’re rolling out a product, in partnership with InvestSuite, called Storyteller – an AIgenerated report that draws on market data to tell the narrative behind the performance of your portfolio, that’s personalised based on the investments and composition of that portfolio. It helps tell a story with better context that highlights the key changes.

When we do this right, reporting becomes less about delivering documents and more about supporting a meaningful conversation. Advisers use that product to help them prep for meetings, give additional context, and navigate how a conversation might flow. It’s a good balance of respecting technical rigour while making the experience more human and relevant for investors.

What do you see as the biggest compliance or risk management challenges for wealth managers today, and how does First Rate help firms adapt to those?

There's a lot of challenges, especially for bigger firms, in managing complexity while maintaining consistency – there’s alternative investments, global and multi-currency data, and increasing expectations around transparency. It depends on the region. The Middle East is not as complianceheavy as Europe, but we’re getting traction there as well. When data lives in multiple systems, it becomes harder to ensure accuracy and governance.

Our approach is to embed compliance into workflows, rather than treating it as something separate. Our system design, the way our process flows, and the way the data comes in, are built with risk-minimisation in mind.

Standardised calculations, clear audit trails, and structured data environments help make firms maintain confidence in their reporting. And scalability is extremely important. When firms grow, risk also grows, but our solutions can really flex up and down based on the client's needs.

With your globally distributed workforce and client base, how do you ensure that your teams remain aligned on quality, innovation, and client impact – especially as you scale?

We’re very intentional about our global presence: we have offices in Chile, Singapore, UK, India. Even though our team is spread out in multiple regions, everyone is anchored around the same priorities: client impact, quality, and innovation. From a product perspective, our developers have a ‘follow the sun’ mentality and are developing around the clock.

We have processes to ensure we are staying on track, remaining innovative, producing products and solutions that we're proud of.

We invest in shared frameworks and a clear product roadmap. We have a vision for where we are today and where we want to go. We have a continuous feedback loop between our engineering and development team and our product management team, and with our clients. We have processes like our opportunity filter analysis, where we can adopt ideas from different places – clients, prospects, industry experts – and work out how to productise an idea. We get that implemented into a product which is supported globally by all our teams.

What emerging trends do you believe will most reshape the wealth management technology landscape, and how is First Rate preparing for those shifts?

AI is more prevalent today than ever: it's moving away from just being a feature to becoming part of the core process of any business. Before, the minority was using AI; where we’re heading, if you're not using AI, you’re the minority. This allows changes in how advisers interact with technology day-to-day.

There's a clear move toward conversions where performance reporting and portfolio operations are no longer separate systems. There’s a move towards greater consolidation. And markets like the Gulf and Asia-Pacific are accelerating, which means platforms must be more adaptable across different regulatory and cultural environments.

Our preparation focuses on building that flexible architecture and investing in innovation that supports real client outcomes. Our goal is to evolve alongside the industry, while staying grounded in the operational precision that wealth managers and advisers rely on.

“ When firms grow, risk also grows, but our solutions can really flex up and down based on the client's needs. “

WFrom portfolios to people Why wealth management still struggles with true client-centricity

e put clients at the centre of everything we do, is one of the most repeated phrases in wealth management. Yet despite years of investment in digital platforms and data transformation, genuinely client-led operating models remain rare.

The core reason is simple: true client centricity is not a slogan – it is an operating model. And operating models are built in architecture, not ambition. Research from McKinsey consistently highlights that becoming truly client-centric requires aligning governance, incentives, data, workflows, and technology around households rather than products or business lines.

Most wealth firms are still organised around platforms, products, and internal silos instead of the real structure of clients’ lives: families, households, and multi-generational relationships.

By Rabih Ramadi, Co-Founder and CEO, Avantos

The structural gap between intent and reality

The aspiration is widely understood, but execution has lagged. Industry research suggests only a minority of financial institutions believe they have embedded client-centric operating models despite years of investment. Large transformation programs frequently fall short due to fragmented systems, inconsistent data, and unclear ownership.

This is not a failure of intent. It is a structural inheritance. Wealth firms evolved over decades by layering new platforms as products expanded, regulations changed, and client segments grew. The result is a deeply fragmented architecture.

“ Only a minority of financial institutions believe they have embedded client-centric operating models despite years of investment.

A single high-net-worth household may exist simultaneously across:

• Custody and portfolio systems

• Financial planning tools

• Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms

• Insurance policy administration

• Trust and estate platforms

Each system works in isolation, but together they create friction. Advisers toggle between screens, duplicate data, and manually reconcile records. Clients experience delays, repeated questions, and a persistent sense that the firm does not fully understand them.

In many firms, a meaningful portion of operational effort is still consumed by manual reconciliation and exception handling – time that could otherwise be spent on advice and relationship building.

Towards relationship abstraction

❝

A real-time, relationshipaware operating layer that reflects how wealth actually exists in the real world

Why traditional fixes fell short

Over the past decade, many institutions attempted to solve fragmentation through large-scale data migration. The goal was a unified client view built on data lakes or enterprise warehouses.

The ambition was compelling. The results were mixed.

Data migrations proved harder than expected due to messy legacy data, identity resolution challenges, and the inability to retire missioncritical core systems. In many cases, firms ended up with better analytics but little change in how advisers onboarded or served clients.

The industry learned a critical lesson: moving data is not the same as transforming operating models.

A new approach: relationship abstraction instead of data migration

A new architectural paradigm is emerging in wealth management – one that focuses on abstraction rather than replacement.

Instead of ripping out core platforms, firms are building relationship layers that sit above existing systems and connect them intelligently. This composable approach enables firms to unify client context without multiyear migrations.

It forms a continuously updated, household-level understanding of wealth relationships spanning:

• Individuals and households

• Accounts and portfolios

• Trusts and policies

• Advisers and service teams

• Multi-generational relationships

Avantos was built around this model from day one. Rather than centralising all data into a single repository, it creates a holistic relationship graph that connects clients, products, accounts, agents, and services across existing platforms.

This creates something the industry has historically lacked: a real-time, relationship-aware operating layer that reflects how wealth actually exists in the real world.

“A new architectural paradigm is emerging in wealth management - one that focuses on abstraction rather than replacement. “

From unified context to AI-orchestrated execution

The real breakthrough is not just visibility – it is orchestration.

On top of this relationship graph, Avantos adds an AI-native orchestration layer that coordinates onboarding, servicing, and advice across systems. Instead of advisers navigating fragmented workflows, intelligent agents proactively guide and execute work across platforms.

This enables a shift from reactive servicing to proactive client operations.

1. Household-centric onboarding

Traditional onboarding treats each product separately. Households are effectively onboarded multiple times across silos.

With a unified relationship layer, a single household profile can power onboarding across accounts, trusts, insurance, and managed portfolios. Data is captured once and reused intelligently, reducing friction while improving accuracy and speed.

2. Cross-platform servicing

Most servicing today is still platformbound. A simple change – like updating beneficiaries or ownership structures – can trigger manual updates across multiple systems.

AI orchestration allows servicing requests to flow across platforms automatically, reducing operational overhead while improving responsiveness and consistency.

3. Proactive advice and relationship intelligence

Perhaps the biggest shift is moving from account-level visibility to relationship-level intelligence.

When systems understand relationships across portfolios, trusts, policies, and generations, firms can identify opportunities that would otherwise remain invisible, such as:

• Fragmented assets that could be consolidated

• Insurance gaps across a household

• Estate planning misalignment

• Intergenerational transfer opportunities

In this model, AI is not just about automation – it is about surfacing relationship insights that drive better advice and deeper engagement.

Reframing growth in a low-alpha world

Investment differentiation alone is becoming harder to sustain. As alpha compresses, advice quality and relationship depth are becoming the true differentiators.

Client centricity, therefore, is not just a CX initiative. It is a growth and productivity strategy.

Firms that unify context and automate orchestration can increase adviser capacity without increasing headcount – freeing time for relationship building, planning, and proactive engagement.

Why this moment feels different

Previous transformation waves aimed for architectural perfection: replace cores, migrate data, rebuild from scratch. Many stalled under their own weight.

The current shift is more pragmatic. Firms are keeping custody, portfolio, and policy systems in place while layering intelligence on top. Composable architectures are enabling progress without disruption.

This makes true client centricity finally achievable at scale.

What a client-centric wealth firm looks like

In a modern, relationship-centric operating model:

• Advisers see one household, not fragmented accounts

• Context spans generations and products

• Service flows seamlessly across platforms

• Insights emerge proactively

• Clients feel known, not processed

Technology alone does not create this outcome – culture and incentives still matter. But without the right architecture, even the most client-focused firms struggle to operationalise their intent.

From portfolios to people

Client centricity has long been an aspiration in wealth management. What is changing now is not the ambition, but the means of achieving it.

By shifting from data migration to relationship abstraction – and from fragmented workflows to AI orchestration – wealth firms can finally align their operating models with how clients actually live and invest.

The transition from portfolios to people is no longer conceptual. It is becoming a practical, deliverable reality that will define the next generation of wealth management.

❝

Without the right architecture, even the most clientfocused firms struggle to operationalise their intent.

Rabih Ramadi Co-Founder and CEO Avantos

Email: rabih@avantos.ai

Website: avantos.ai

ABOUT The Wealth Mosaic

The Wealth Mosaic is a global multi-service agency powered by a unique, market-leading directory and knowledge platform, specifically tailored to the needs of the wealth management industry.

Explore The Wealth Mosaic

From our directory to events and editorial opportunities, we have tailor-made solutions ready to generate success for your business and its goals.

The digital marketplace for wealth management.

The Wealth Mosaic is a global multi-service agency powered by a unique, market-leading directory and knowledge platform, specifically tailored to the needs of the wealth management industry.

The Wealth Mosaic was founded on the view that the business of wealth management is ever-changing and, for any wealth management business to thrive, the role of third-party solution providers would become more important than ever. From this, the idea was born of building one dedicated vendor directory-led business resource for the industry.

As The Wealth Mosaic has grown, our directory and service offerings have expanded to support the varied business needs of vendors in the industry. Our goal is to help your businesses thrive in a changing world.

For solution providers

We enable our solution providers to position, engage, and support business development – through an entry in our directory and by leveraging our range of supporting services.

We enable our clients to position their offerings, inform the marketplace, and reach their target audiences within the global wealth management sector in a variety of ways.

Our primary users are wealth managers. They use our platform to support their discovery of solution providers, offerings, and related knowledge content to meet

For consultants & stakeholders

Our platform is open to any user from anywhere in the world. Alongside wealth managers, our platform is used by other

Discover more Scan or click here to access our Service & Pricing Guide 2026

Our principles

Built for wealth

We are 100% focused on wealth management and the main sub-segments of the sector. Our focus drives knowledge, relevance, and engagement. We support our clients in accessing this sector.

Directory-led

Our value areas

Global Directory

Our directory provides fuss-free access to the solutions, solution providers, and knowledge resources that are shaping the future of wealth management. This resource is segmented under our unique taxonomy.

Knowledge hub

Our platform, channels, and community communications are informing the global conversation around wealth management and the adoption of innovative technology and tools that are rapidly changing the industry.

Event Platform

TWM is built on our solution provider directory. Unique in its focus and scale, the directory supports the needs of both sides of our marketplace – buyers and sellers, driving knowledge, awareness, and engagement.

Research-driven

TWM was founded on a research-based process. We proactively put ourselves and our products and services in the market to support the needs of the industry.

Flexible and collaborative

Our model is flexible and our approach is collaborative. We work with clients and partners to deliver value and results, helping them to achieve their goals, whether in the short or long term.

Our global events offer our digitalfirst community with a range of opportunities and formats to meet, share experiences, and build meaningful industry connections.

Publisher

Our established platform connects over 200,000 users to the content, insights, and critical resources that are informing the growth of wealth management. We leverage the publishing arm of our business to publish key industry reports, research, and editorials.

Consultative

We take a consultative approach to our clients, both in relation to their marketing needs and broader strategic requirements. We also offer consultative services in partnership with a number of specialist independent consultants.

Agency

Our content and digital marketing engine delivers the creation, curation, and amplification of our clients’ tactical marketing needs.

Market Spotlight

An update on some of our members’ news, deals, and strategic moves over the course of the last quarter.

Avantos raises $35 million to power the future of client servicing in financial services

Avantos - 19th Feb 26

AI-native platform provider Avantos has raised US$25 million in a Series A funding round led by Besser Venture Partners, bringing its total funding to US$35 million. Avantos, which develops technology designed to streamline client onboarding, servicing, and operational workflows for financial institutions, said the new funding will support product development, team expansion, and wider adoption of its platform across the wealth management sector.

Jacobi launches suite of AI-assisted coding resources to accelerate custom investment technology development

Jacobi - 27th Feb 26

Jacobi Strategies has launched a suite of AI-assisted coding resources designed to accelerate the development of custom investment technology. The tools integrate AI coding assistants, including GitGub Copilot, within Jacobi’s secure development environment. The initiative is intended to help investment teams build analytics, models, and applications more efficiently while maintaining the level of governance and security standards that can be expected in institutional investment organisations.

BNP Paribas Fortis Family Office and QPLIX sign contract to digitalise exclusive wealth services

QPLIX - 12th Feb 26

QPLIX has announced that BNP Paribas has adopted its platform for its family office activities. The QPLIX system will support portfolio management, reporting, and consolidation of complex assets for family office clients. It said the partnership reflects growing demand for integrated digital infrastructure capable of managing diversified wealth structures and delivering greater transparency across investment portfolios.

Explore 13,500+ knowledge resources

Landkreditt Bank enters long-term strategic agreement with Profile Centevo

Profile Software - 12th Feb 26

Norway’s Landkreditt Bank is modernising its fund administration and trading infrastructure through a long-term strategic agreement with software provider Profile Centevo, a member of Profile Software. The bank will implement Centevo’s platform, including migrating its unitholder register. The partnership is intended to improve operational efficiency, enhance scalability, and support the continued development of Landkreditt’s investment fund services.

Infront strengthens its executive team with a series of senior hires

Infront - 16th Feb 26

WealthTech software and financial market data provider Infront has strengthened its executive team with a series of senior hires. David Bower joins as chief revenue officer, bringing more than 25 years’ experience in asset and wealth management, including roles at BlackRock and Invesco. Andrew Chen has been appointed chief financial officer, adding nearly three decades of capital markets and corporate finance expertise. Finally, Camilla Cocozza has joined as chief operating officer, supporting the firm’s operational leadership as it pursues its next phase of growth.

Recommended cash and share acquisition of Allfunds Group by Deutsche Börse

Allfunds - 16th Feb 26

Fund distribution and digital wealth solution platform Allfunds announced a series of strategic developments over the course of Q1 2026. It confirmed an acquisition by Deutsche Börse that valued the firm at about €5.3 billion and is set to complete in the first half of 2027. It also announced a collaboration with MSCI to integrate investment data and analytics into its platform, and a partnership with Waystone to provide management company services in Luxembourg and Ireland, expanding support for fund managers and distributors.