Toward a 'platform mindset': 3 foundational wealth management tech trends

For years, the traditional wealth management experience has consisted of advisors meeting with clients face to face, understanding their needs and developing personal plans and then actively managing those investments with in-person check-ins on performance. Today's investors are looking for something more. As they experience in other realms of their lives, investors expect personalization, customization, flexibility and adaptability from their wealth management channels — all at their fingertips, all of the time. 

As we look to the future, three key wealth technology trends can help power these experiences.

Personalized wealth experiences
Clients who consume financial products and experiences want highly personalized content and are looking for firms that truly understand their needs and can support their financial goals over their lifetime. Furthermore, clients are increasingly seeking tools that allow them to  evaluate their financial health for themselves. 

How do we innovate for this level of personalization and collaboration? By supplementing human-to-human interactions and advice with digital interactions propelled by technology and data. From a technology perspective, personalized experiences are primarily driven by strong artificial Intelligence and machine learning that create predictive models based on client data, including information harnessed across products the client owns, client segmentation and client life events and  goals.

Harvesting data and the widespread use of AI models can accelerate personalization by providing advisors or clients with relevant and timely insights to drive meaningful decisions. Wealth management technology organizations should develop a strategy for consolidating and leveraging internal and external data sources and invest in expanding AI and ML capability if they want to take advantage of this trend toward highly personalized client experiences. 

Reimagining collaboration between clients and advisors
The pandemic accelerated the need for collaboration regarding digital platforms. Creating capabilities that allow clients to contact their advisor remotely has become foundational. Imagine a scenario where a client is struggling with a task on their online wealth portal, like moving funds from accounts. They pause and send a quick message to their advisor or a chatbot and immediately receive back highly personalized and contextual content, or they can jump on a video chat as needed. These types of interactions help clients and advisors be more productive with their time.

At J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, we've been investing in our digital capabilities to support clients when and where they want. In December 2022, we launched Wealth Plan, a free digital money coach that gives clients a full picture of their finances and helps them plan, save and invest in one place. If they'd like to speak with a professional, users can schedule a meeting with an advisor right in the app. The advisor will have access to the client's data, allowing them to have a meaningful conversation from day one. In November we launched our new remote advice channel, J.P. Morgan Personal Advisors, to help meet the needs of clients seeking virtual advice from their home. Personal Advisors clients can speak with an advisor as frequently as they want by video or phone, receive a personalized financial plan and have access to expert-built investment portfolios.

Successful technology organizations will recognize that enabling advisors to view client portfolios through digital channels brings real-time ability for analysis, monitoring performance and goal planning and drives more connected experiences.

Breaking out of silos
There's one last thing that we, as an industry, need to push for, and that's moving away from the linear way of developing products and software that exists in silos and toward designing wealth capabilities as a seamlessly connected end-to-end ecosystem. It's what we call platform thinking. For example, self-planning capabilities can enable a client to simulate timelines, goals and their probability of achieving those goals, augmented with ML-enabled personalization. On a parallel track, the client's digital goal-planning journey is revealed to the advisor, allowing them to better understand their client and provide timely and relevant advice. The power of platform thinking brings the advisor, client, machine and collaboration aspects together to enable advisors to better serve their clients. 

Platform thinking can be applied across all wealth capabilities and integrated across internal and third-party capabilities, empowering advisors and clients to understand the true value of creating moments that matter. This mindset allows participants to constantly improve interaction models by enhancing the platform. It also creates an ecosystem that can more easily react to market disruption, supporting future growth while providing consistent and resilient wealth capabilities to our advisors and clients.  

The shifting wealth management landscape will surely bring new trends to light, but the ability to create personalized wealth experiences, continually improve client and advisor collaboration and evolve to a platform mindset will quickly shift from emerging trends to foundational capabilities.