Amid the ups and downs of the markets and the trends among high- and ultra-high-net-worth clients, the landscape of the wealth management business looks very different from the traditional private banking of the past. Before an audience of financial industry professionals gathered at the Funds Society Leaders Summit in Miami, senior executives from Bolton Global, Insigneo Financial Group, Bigsur Partners and WE Family Offices outlined the main challenges they face in the current environment.
In the opening panel of the summit—an event organized by Funds Society and CFA Society Miami—they highlighted the importance of internal processes, the evolution of investors’ needs, and technological advancement, including the disruptive factor of artificial intelligence (AI).
“The biggest challenges today are not only related to markets, but also structural, behavioral, and operational,” emphasized the session’s moderator, Kimberly Argüello, president of CFA Society Miami. Governance, alignment with clients’ interests, and discipline in decision-making, she underscored, matter just as much as portfolio performance.
Dialogue at the company level
Amid the fluctuations of different asset classes, market risks tend to capture the attention of financial advisors and wealth managers. However, there are also risks on the governance and operational front. “Many times, as an industry, we ignore that aspect of risk,” commented John Cataldo, Chief Legal and Chief Administrative Officer of Bolton Global.
In a context where the greatest regulatory risk lies in the changing nature of the rules framework, the professional recommends more dialogue between the different areas of the company, while maintaining the flexibility needed to incorporate investment opportunities, without losing a sense of responsibility. “It is important that we all understand that compliance is a tool, it is an effective part of the experience. It is the nature of our business,” he emphasized.
This area becomes especially relevant for global companies interested in Latin America. In a vast and heterogeneous region—dozens of countries with their own regulatory frameworks and particularities—companies tend to plant only a couple of flags in markets such as Brazil and Mexico, noted Raúl Henríquez, CEO and Chairman of Insigneo Financial Group.
“The approach to the region is lukewarm,” he said. “You have to be focused and committed to the region, which implies having a robust compliance capability that understands the differences in regulatory frameworks in each country where you want to operate,” he added.
What clients expect
It is not only the regulatory environment that has been transforming the industry. The demands of wealth management clients themselves, both family offices and retail investors, have evolved in recent years.
For Henríquez, the opening of access to different investment products and strategies has made service “a key factor in the equation.”
On the asset side, Ignacio Pakciarz, Founding Partner and Co-CEO of Bigsur Partners, emphasized that the end of the period of loose monetary policy that prevailed for a decade “has forced a more explicit relative value framework than in the era of quantitative easing.”
For the professional, this “raised the bar,” placing the focus on the quality of business models and microeconomic factors. This environment, he explained, “makes investors think in terms of the full cycle, regarding risk-adjusted returns.”
In any case, different types of clients have different dynamics. Unlike institutional investors, family offices have the advantage of flexibility, investing at their discretion and without regulatory constraints. “The opportunity is greater and flexibility is the strength,” commented Santiago Ulloa, Founding and Managing Partner of WE Family Offices.
That said, they also face the challenge of incorporating elements such as taxation and corporate structures into planning.
The role of technology
The increasing implementation of technology is also something that CEOs of wealth management firms are incorporating into their expectations for the sector.
For Henríquez, of Insigneo, the implementation of artificial intelligence will be an important factor for firms in the future. However, he does not believe that human interaction will disappear from the advisory process. “AI will be prevalent, but it could play in favor of a ‘humans first’ strategy,” he said.
Another trend gaining traction is the demand for greater personalization in investment solutions. “I predict that personalization will become accessible through technology and will be a necessity, even at the affluent level,” he commented during the panel.
On the investment side, there is also a relevant influence on portfolios. The AI revolution has set the pace for growth investments in recent years, according to Pakciarz, of Bigsur. Now, he explained, “it is about resegmenting growth toward high-quality, reasonably priced opportunities, away from speculative and long-duration strategies.”
“For asset selectors, this favors diversification across styles and sectors, greater selectivity in the growth space, truly opportunistic hedging, and well-thought-out payment structuring,” he added.
