The digital revolution has undeniably reshaped how consumers interact with the world, and financial services are no exception. From my vantage point as Chief Commercial Officer in the WealthTech space, I see a powerful new distribution model emerging that has the potential to fundamentally transform how wealth management products reach individuals: embedded wealth.  

This isn't just a minor adjustment; it's a significant opportunity for wealth management product providers to reach previously underserved customer segments by seamlessly integrating their offerings into the digital environments where people already spend time. 

Meeting customers where they are 
So, what exactly do I mean by embedded wealth? Simply put, it's about strategically distributing a range of wealth management solutions — from straightforward savings accounts to diverse investment portfolios and long-term retirement plans — through non-traditional (i.e. non-financial) channels. Instead of solely relying on individuals actively seeking out financial institutions, embedded wealth brings these solutions directly into their everyday online experiences.  

Imagine someone browsing on their favourite e-commerce site and being offered the option to open a savings account specifically to fund that purchase. Imagine a user engaging on a social media platform and encountering an opportunity to start a small investment portfolio aligned with their future aspirations. This is the essence of embedded wealth: meeting customers where they are, precisely when a financial need or goal arises. 

The antidote to financial inertia
The beauty of this approach lies in its mutually beneficial nature. It creates a ‘win-win-win’ scenario for customers, distributors, and, of course, wealth management providers. For consumers, embedded wealth acts as a powerful antidote to the inertia that often prevents engagement with financial products. By offering relevant solutions within familiar digital spaces, it significantly lowers the barrier to entry for those who might feel intimidated or uncertain about traditional financial avenues. 

Think about it: someone is looking at a new piece of furniture online but realises it's beyond their current means. Traditionally, they might either abandon the purchase or consider taking on debt. However, with an embedded savings product, they could be offered a seamless way to create a dedicated regular savings pot, with automated contributions, directly through the retailer's platform. This not only helps them achieve their goal responsibly but also cultivates a saving mindset. 

Unlocking loyalty and lowering acquisition costs
For the distributors — the e-commerce platforms, social media networks, and other non-financial corporations — embedded wealth becomes a potent tool for deepening customer engagement and fostering loyalty. By providing valuable financial services, they can strengthen their relationships with their customers, encourage longer engagement on their platforms, and gain valuable insights into future purchasing behaviours.  

The ‘save now, buy later’ model, for instance, not only empowers customers to reach their goals but also increases the likelihood of a future transaction with the distributor. Moreover, offering embedded wealth solutions can set them apart in a competitive landscape and even unlock new revenue streams through strategic partnerships and commissions.  

The real game-changer is the immense opportunity that embedded wealth presents for wealth management providers. It unlocks entirely new distribution channels, allowing access to customer segments that might not typically interact with traditional banks or financial advisors. This can lead to significantly lower customer acquisition costs compared to conventional marketing strategies.  

By collaborating with trusted consumer brands that boast established digital footprints and strong customer relationships, wealth management product providers can tap into a vast and previously inaccessible pool of potential clients. Furthermore, these partnerships can yield invaluable data-driven insights into customer behaviour and preferences, paving the way for more tailored and effective product offerings. This leads to higher conversion of a distributor’s client base and reduces a provider’s typical customer acquisition costs. 

Ready to dive into the report and discover more about WealthOS’s showcase? You can read and download the report online here.

Global success stories in action
We’re already seeing compelling examples of embedded wealth in action globally, demonstrating its power to democratise access to financial tools.  

Take Gojek in Southeast Asia. Best described as a super app that integrates ride-sharing, food delivery, payments, and various digital services, it recognised that its users heavily transacted with balances in their in-app GoPay wallet. This presented a natural opportunity to offer investment products directly within the Gojek ecosystem through GoInvestasi. In partnership with the licensed Indonesian fintech platform Pluang, this feature allows users in Indonesia to seamlessly buy and sell digital gold starting from very small amounts, all in compliance with local regulations. This service is a powerful, active example of how a non-traditional player can successfully distribute investment options to its existing user base, reaching individuals who may have never considered investing before. 

On the savings side, we saw UK bank NatWest (through their "Boxed" initiative) partner with the AA (Automobile Association) to offer savings options to AA members directly through the AA platform. This allowed AA customers to easily create savings accounts, perhaps to save for car repairs, servicing, or their next insurance renewal – a contextually relevant financial solution offered within a non-financial service they already used and trusted. This brought the convenience and accessibility of savings products to a demographic that might not have actively sought out these services through traditional banking channels. 

These examples highlight how embedded wealth lowers the barrier to entry for many individuals who might find traditional wealth management intimidating or inconvenient. By integrating financial products into familiar digital experiences, it normalises saving and investing, making it a natural extension of everyday online activities. 

The infrastructure imperative
To fully realise the potential of embedded wealth, robust and modern technology infrastructure is not just desirable – it’s essential. The seamless integration of wealth management products into diverse digital environments demands technologically sophisticated solutions.

This necessitates robust Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that enable secure and efficient communication between product administration software and a distributor's systems. The entire customer journey must be digital-first, from initial onboarding to seamless transaction execution, requiring a high degree of automation to ensure efficiency and scalability, especially given the potential for large volumes of smaller initial balances. 

Although wealth management firms possess crucial product expertise and regulatory compliance frameworks, they often face the challenge of legacy technology infrastructure that isn't ideally suited for seamless embedding. This is where modern wealth management software, like that of WealthOS, becomes invaluable.  

By providing the digital connective tissue between existing systems and the demands of embedded distribution, we enable traditional wealth managers to participate in this revolution without the need for a complete and costly overhaul of their core technology. Our software, for instance, can seamlessly wrap existing wealth management products with the necessary APIs, automation and orchestration capabilities, making them readily integrable into third-party platforms. Alternatively, providers could also use our technology for the end-to-end operations of fully digital wealth management products that are natively embeddable. 

Why partnership beats white-labelling
However, simply rebranding existing products under a distributor’s name — the traditional white-labelling approach — is unlikely to yield the desired results. Trust is paramount in financial services, and consumers are far more likely to engage with embedded wealth solutions when they recognise and trust the underlying financial institution. Therefore, the partnership model, where the provider’s brand remains visible and their regulatory standing provides reassurance, is significantly more effective in fostering consumer confidence and driving adoption. 

In conclusion, embedded wealth represents a profound shift in the WealthTech landscape. It offers a compelling value proposition for customers, distributors, and wealth managers. However, unlocking its full potential hinges on the ability to embrace modern, API-driven infrastructure.

By strategically partnering with technology specialists and seamlessly embedding trusted financial products into the digital journeys of everyday consumers, wealth managers can tap into previously unreachable markets, promote greater financial inclusion, and secure their relevance in an increasingly digital world.  

The future of wealth distribution isn't just about creating innovative products; it's about intelligently and conveniently bringing those products to where future customers already are. 

Interested in reading the Future View Toolkit 2025? You can read and download the report online here.

About the Future View Toolkit 2025
The Future View Toolkit 2025 focuses on the ways in which the wealth management industry across the world is future-proofing itself amid technological change, increasing compliance demands, advanced client expectations, and new operational models.

It features contributions from a total of nine industry participants, all bringing different perspectives to the challenges and opportunities that come with the future-proofing of this sector. Among these are six contributors from technology vendors, who have each contributed a topic-focused Showcase profiling an individual solution.

Our broader Toolkit Report Series covers thematic, geography and wealth manager segment-focused reports, each tasked with delving into the topics and supporting technologies of relevance to help wealth managers of all types better understand how they should bring technology into their business and in which areas.

About The Wealth Mosaic
The Wealth Mosaic is a UK-headquartered online solution provider directory and knowledge resource, focused specifically on the wealth management industry.

For wealth managers, the buy side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic is designed to enable discovery of key solutions, solution providers and knowledge resources by specific business needs.

For solution providers and vendors, the sell side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic exists to support the positioning, exposure and business development needs of these firms in a more complex and demanding market.

For more information, visit: www.thewealthmosaic.com

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