In an increasingly demanding financial environment, where technology is redefining the rules of the game and inclusion becomes an unavoidable priority, voices like that of Alicia Arias, Commercial Director of LAKPA, gain special relevance. LAKPA is a fintech company aspiring to become the largest community of independent financial advisors in Spanish-speaking Latin America. Currently, it has over 260 advisors in Chile and is actively expanding into the Mexican market.
In this exclusive interview for the Key Trends Watch by FlexFunds and Funds Society, Arias shares her vision on the transformative role of independent financial advisory and the challenges faced by wealth management in Latin America.
Far from viewing the financial industry as an environment reserved for a few, Arias sees it as a tool to generate real impact in the lives of individuals and companies. “Participating in this industry gives us the opportunity to make a difference in society,” she states. With a career that includes leadership positions at firms like BlackRock and GBM, her current focus is on bringing investment solutions to a broader audience and empowering independent financial advisors.
Simultaneously, she promotes initiatives aimed at modernizing and humanizing the sector, such as the non-profit association Mujeres en Finanzas, which encourages the development of diverse talent in the industry. From her perspective, fostering greater representation and professionalism not only enhances service quality but also broadens access to opportunities that have historically been limited to a few.
In her role at LAKPA, Arias drives an independent financial advisory model that seeks to professionalize and scale the service in Latin America. “Today, there are fewer than 5,000 active advisors in Mexico for a population of over 100 million.” For Arias, the key lies in freeing advisors from operational tasks through technological platforms that allow them to focus on the client and autonomously choose the segment they wish to serve, from affluent profiles to ultra high net worth individuals.
The expert highlights the enormous potential of the affluent segment, often overlooked by large institutions: “Many investors with $200,000 or $300,000 end up trapped in generic products or with poor advisory.” She firmly believes that, with the right tools, it is possible to offer them high-quality service. “We are seeing more and more advisors building their portfolios around this segment, with independence, structure, and access to global solutions. To me, that is a real transformation of the advisory model in the region,” she concludes.
Three key trends in financial advisory
For Arias, the future of wealth advisory revolves around three major trends:
- Fee-based accounts: a transparent model that eliminates traditional conflicts of interest in the industry and places the client at the center.
- Technology as an enabler: platforms that automate administrative processes and free up the advisor’s time to generate real value.
- Independent advisory: a service centered on the investor, without conflicts of interest and with an open architecture. Until the arrival of players like LAKPA, this was only accessible to high-net-worth clients.
Collective vehicles: efficiency and access from an expert’s perspective
In her opinion, collective investment vehicles are particularly attractive in the context of independent financial advisory. Products like ETFs have become key tools due to their efficiency, liquidity, transparency, and low cost, allowing advisors to build diversified portfolios with access to markets that were previously restricted.
“A client enters an ETF at the same price as an institutional investor,” she emphasizes, highlighting the democratizing role of these instruments. From her perspective, these types of solutions enable the provision of professional and competitive advisory, even in segments like the affluent.
Alternatives on the rise: perspective on wealth demand
From her experience, alternative assets have ceased to be exclusive to the institutional world and have become a growing trend in wealth management. “Financial advisors are already allocating a portion of portfolios to these types of strategies,” she states. In her opinion, two factors have been key to this evolution: on one hand, innovation in vehicles—such as semi-liquid funds, evergreen funds, or those with more frequent liquidity windows—which make them more suitable for this segment; and on the other, the emergence of technological platforms that allow access to funds from major managers with tickets starting at $20,000.
According to Arias, advisors are already incorporating between 10% and 15% of alternatives in more aggressive portfolios, with private debt funds being particularly attractive due to their generation of recurring income and lower exposure to the J-curve. In contrast, she observes that in many cases, traditional private equity may overlap with the business exposure that clients already have in their own companies. “That’s where private debt makes more sense: it allows for real diversification,” she concludes.
Financial education: the real challenge in capital raising
The biggest obstacle faced by financial advisors today is not the lack of available capital, but the lack of financial education among potential investors: “The money is there, but the client still doesn’t have the necessary information to take the first step,” says Arias. To illustrate this, she cites a figure from the Bank of Mexico: resources in demand accounts—that is, money that is not invested or is invested for very short terms—amount to over 400 billion pesos, a figure that doubles the size of the investment fund industry in the country.
In her opinion, this idle capital could be generating returns if there were greater awareness of the available alternatives, something in which advisors can play a key role. Additionally, she explains that the location of assets largely depends on the client’s profile: while higher-net-worth individuals tend to invest offshore, thanks to their operational capacity and access to international custodians, the affluent segment usually keeps their money onshore.
The irreplaceable role of the advisor in the face of technological advancement
For the expert, technology is revolutionizing financial advisory, but the human role remains essential. “Many professions are going to disappear or transform, but that of the financial advisor is not one of them,” she states. She cites a Vanguard study that classifies human tasks into basic, repetitive, and advanced. The first are easily automatable; the second, such as relating, teaching, or building trust, are not.
From this perspective, the value of the advisor lies in their ability to connect with the client. “Technology can optimize processes, but it doesn’t replace empathy or personalization. Those are the true competitive advantages,” she maintains. In her view, financial advisory, due to its high human component, will not only withstand technological change but will become even more relevant.
A more human and conscious future for wealth management
Looking ahead to the next 5 to 10 years, Arias identifies two key challenges for the sector: the climate crisis and the retirement crisis. “We will live longer, but not necessarily better if we don’t plan properly,” she warns. The industry must take an active role, designing sustainable solutions tailored to real needs, especially in underserved segments.
In this context, empathy will be the critical skill for the advisor. “Trust is built by listening, understanding, and acting with sensitivity. No platform replaces that,” she emphasizes.
Arias concludes with a strategic outlook: the growth of the sector will not come solely from technology, but from a combination of digital tools and expert advisory. “The hybrid model is the catalyst. Technology alone is not enough. People need guidance, trust, empathy,” she points out.
In a continent with significant gaps in access to quality financial services, Alicia Arias’s vision paves the way for a model that bets on independence, technology, and, above all, human talent as the engine of transformation.
Interview conducted by Emilio Veiga Gil, Executive Vice President of FlexFunds, in the context of the Key Trends Watch by FlexFunds and Funds Society.
For Amaya Uriarte