Welcome to the first edition of our Global Family Office WealthTech Landscape Report (GFO WLTR). Like the other reports published in our ongoing WealthTech Landscape Report Series (WTLRs) program, our goal with the GFO WTLR 2022 is to showcase the depth, breadth and growing range of technology and related solution providers available to similarly growing ranks of family offices across the world. This report is just the start for us in providing the GFO market with a comprehensive view of the technology and related solution provider marketplace.
Read and download the GFO WTLR 2022 report for free here. Alternatively, please click the image below.
In this first edition of the GFO WTLR, we have included 325+ solution providers. We expect that number to grow as we move forward with future editions in 2023 and beyond. This increase will be reflected in two simultaneous developments: (1) the number of solution providers offering solutions to this market increasing, and (2) our knowledge of this market and supporting process to discover and stay up to date as best we can with an increase in solution providers.
As a directory-first, research-led, wealth management-focused resource, TWM is on a mission to create the ultimate Solution Provider Directory-based resource for the GFO marketplace. Whenever we discover a solution provider relevant to this market, we include it on our online Solution Provider Directory. Every time we publish this report, we will include that business here too.
In short, we aim to bring family offices, regardless of their location and business model (single versus multi-family office, etc.), a complete and accessible view of their relevant technology landscape in one area. Actually, two areas, as very soon, this report will be supported by a dedicated family office technology directory within our existing online Solution Provider Directory. This provides the backbone of this report and every one of the 325+ solution providers included in the A-Z Solution Provider Directory. This report has (or soon will have in the few cases where the firm is a new discovery within our research process) a business and solution profile hosted on our website.
While this report is a one-time showcase of this market for 2022, our online Solution Provider Directory is available 24-7, 365-days a year as a digital host of solution provider profiles, solution profiles and content. Whatever your profile as a family office, this resource has been built to support the business needs of the family office sector worldwide.
We hope you find value in this report in the various informative and insightful articles at the front and in the solution provider directory sections later on. While most of these businesses are technology firms of one form or another that serve and target the GFO market, we also include some related firms in this directory, including analysts, compliance, consulting, data and insight businesses.
If you are interested in featuring in the next issue of this report series, don't hesitate to get in touch with Stephen Wall, Founder at TWM, to secure your place: stephen@wealthmosaic.com
GFO WTLR 2021 - Highlights
Looking across the broad GFO market, we can safely say that the market has historically been heavily underserved by technology. For a variety of reasons on both sides of the equation (family offices/the buy-side: too small in size, lacking internal technology skills/experience, sceptical to the benefits of technology and wary of the costs, able to get by on common tools such as Excel and ‘free services’ from custodian banks and others, etc.; technology solution providers/the sell-side: hugely fragmented family office market to target, many family office firms being too small to justify the spend on technology or not having the staff to implement and run the systems, technology not being flexible enough for the job or built explicitly for the needs of family offices, etc.), the technology to service family offices fully and professionally was only available to the largest firms.
For those above US$1 billion in assets, possibly down to US$500 million, the technology was available if they were willing to spend the money and/or they had the internal resources to manage those often more complex systems. However, the cost and complexity of running a technology stack have been prohibitive below those asset and resource thresholds. In many instances, the growing GFO market has been traditionally underserved by its technology. But that is changing.
Technology has become more capable and able, making it quicker, easier to develop, cheaper to build, etc., and this evolution has been accompanied by the growth of ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) and family offices, and the general rise of WealthTech. This ever-changing environment means that current and future generations of wealth holders have changed their priorities, creating a reason and need for the family office to grow.
The family office today, whether a single family office, multi-family office, virtual family office, family office service within a bank, a law firm, a fiduciary, a UHNWI or other type, has more technology to choose from than ever before, like the A-Z Solution Provider Directory in this report highlights. And, looking forward, we can see the number of technology and related solution providers for the GFO market growing, at least in short to mid-term.
Whatever the business need of the family office, whether things like account aggregation, alternative assets, analytics, business intelligence, compliance, crypto investing, data consolidation, family communications, investment marketplaces, portfolio build, portfolio management, portfolio reporting, trading or much more, the technology solutions available are increasing. Most importantly, many solutions are now built specifically for the family office sector.
The mosaic of available solution providers (hence our name!) is increasingly built for the specific needs of family offices, becoming larger in scale, more focused on specific pain points of the sector, increasingly interconnected and more easily accessible in terms of cost, deployment and management. While we are very optimistic about the available technology stack for family offices, we still recognize the journey is not yet complete, and there remains more work to do to deliver on specific pain points.
