Harriet Davies
Editor - Family Wealth Report
11 April 2012
Feature
In this two-part series about new wealth management businesses aiming to create a “high-touch” service for the mass affluent, the effects on the ultra high net worth wealth management industry are considered of the launch-to-market of these largely tech-based offerings. The second part of this feature will be published tomorrow.
Silicon Valley is one of the most powerful engines of growth in the US and as such is attracting wealth management firms with a view to picking up new clients. Conversely though, firms originating in the Valley are bringing their technological expertise to bear on wealth management services in a bid to make these more widely available at lower cost: should the wealth industry be wary, or encouraged?
And while changes in the mass affluent sector may not seem relevant to the high-touch, exclusive service offered by high-end wealth managers, it could be argued that by redefining what high-end wealth management is not, the mass affluent offering forces the upper echelons of the wealth management industry to keep reevaluating what it is.
The technology industry certainly has a history of revolutionizing business practices. Who can imagine a working day now without a mobile phone, or the internet, or indeed a mobile phone that can access the internet?
Two firms pioneering a tech-based service for wealth management are FutureAdvisor and Personal Capital.
