In the WealthTech Talks interview series, we interview senior executives from leading wealth management firms, solution providers, and WealthTech influencers to learn more about them, their journey, their perspectives on the market, and how they see the future of wealth management

For this issue of WealthTech Talks, we caught up with Enrique Sacau, CEO of Infront, the leading data and technology partner to Europe's investment industry. Having been a client of the business himself before taking the helm, Sacau brings a clear, customer’s-eye view of what Europe's banks, wealth managers and asset managers really need.

In this interview, Sacau shared his insight into the breadth of what Infront does, from market data to trading and portfolio technology, and where the business goes next. He also shared his views on the forces reshaping the industry, from the great transfer of wealth between generations to the rise of the retail investor and the role of AI.

1. Could you provide a brief introduction to your business?

The best place to start is the scale of what we do. More than a million end users rely on Infront every day, our data covers around 15 million instruments, and our teams work across nine countries on three core business lines: Data Intelligence, Trading & Investor, and Portfolio & Advisory. 

This makes us one of Europe's leading financial data and technology businesses, sitting right at the heart of the continent's financial infrastructure and providing the data, platforms and tools that institutions depend on.

What many people don't realise is how far back we go. Our roots reach back to 1929, when the very first part of what became Infront was founded, so our centenary is now in sight. We have put that milestone at the centre of our thinking: our strategy is called Horizon 100, and the ambition behind it is to build an even stronger, more modern Infront by the time we get there.

2. In the wealth management sector, what types of clients do you primarily work with and target?

We work with the institutions that serve investors, right across the wealth and asset management value chain. That means private banks, wealth and asset managers, and independent asset managers first and foremost, but also insurers, distributors and retail banks. Around 3,000 businesses use Infront today.

Our clients run from major European banks and insurers to boutique asset managers and advisory firms, and our footprint covers the continent's main financial centres, including the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Nordics and the Benelux.

What I find interesting is who sits at the very end of that chain. In one market, it might be someone steadily building their pension; in another, a high-net-worth client working with a private bank. Their needs could hardly be more different, but in every case our job is the same: to give the institution serving them the tools to do it well.

3. Why do your existing and target clients choose to work with you? What makes your solutions relevant and distinct from your competitors?

What sets us apart is the range of what we do, and that we do it as one provider. With Infront, a client can take their market data, their trading connectivity, and their portfolio and advisory technology from a single partner that already understands how those pieces fit, rather than buying them from three or four providers and joining them up themselves.

That breadth lets us do something unusual. Most companies help a client with one or two things. We help with three at the same time: we help them grow, we help them stay compliant, and we help them save money. Doing all three together is rare, and it is the main reason clients work with us.

It matters too that we are a data company first. Data is the asset our clients care about most, and our technology exists to deliver it and put it to work. That principle runs through everything we build.

And then there is Europe itself. It is a complex market, with many regulators, languages and currencies, and that complexity is exactly why specialist knowledge is so valuable. If it were easy, our clients would not need us.

4. What's next for your business? Can you share the firm's current focus and future plans, such as product development, market expansion, and strategic goals?

As I mentioned, our strategy is Horizon 100, and at its core, it is about growth. Most of that growth will come from the clients we already work with, by deepening those relationships and bringing them more of what we do, which is where we create the most value for them.

Two priorities sit beneath that. The first is data. We are investing heavily so that a single, consistent flow of data works behind everything we offer, and so that clients can bring together and make sense of their own information far more easily. What’s their client’s total portfolio value, what’s the risk of a certain investment, what breaking news is impacting the market – investment professionals need data to answer all these questions, and they need it fast. That is our purpose at Infront.

The second is AI. We are building AI-driven intelligence across our business lines. A good example is our new agentic AI capability for wealth managers, which lets clients work with their data and our tools in a far more natural way. The thread running through all of it is the same: make our clients more productive, and make their data work harder for them.

5. Based on your experience in the wealth management sector, what key opportunities and challenges do you foresee for firms today and in the next three years?

The biggest opportunity is that more people are investing than ever before, and governments across Europe are actively encouraging it. Alongside this trend is a huge transfer of wealth from the baby boomers to the next generations. It will play out over the next ten to twenty years, and it forces financial institutions to become hyper-digital, because that is the only way they will hold on to the children of their current clients.

The nature of saving is changing too. The pension has become an investment plan, and there is no longer much difference between a pension and any other form of saving. In effect, everything is turning into wealth management. Private markets are part of that shift. They have performed well, and they are a real opportunity for ordinary investors, though they carry responsibility with them, because people need to understand what they are buying.

The challenges I see are that margins are under pressure, and clients expect a far more digital and personalised experience than before. Add to this the pace of change AI is bringing. But I see it firmly as an opportunity, not a threat. In a world of AI, you need more data, not less. It raises the value of good data, and the firms that get their data right are the ones that will come out ahead.

About Infront
Infront is the leading data and technology partner to Europe's investment industry. From market intelligence to trading and portfolio management, we help banks, asset managers and insurers to make smarter, data-driven decisions faster, and to serve every investor with confidence.

For more information, click here.

About the WealthTech Talks Interview Series
In the WealthTech Talks interview series, we interview senior executives from leading wealth management firms, solution providers, and WealthTech influencers to learn more about them, their journey, their perspectives on the market, and how they see the future of wealth management.

Read the latest editions in the series below!

• Stefanos Athanasiadis, Managing Director Investment Solutions – CEO Profile Centevo, at Profile Software – click here to read the interview
• Blake Bjordahl, President of RIA Compliance Technology – click here to read the interview
• Tom Williams, Co-Founder of Point – click here to read the interview