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How wealth management firms can prepare to face turbulent times [Farnoush Farsiar]
Generational shifts Global mobility. Technological revolution. These are just a few of the major changes that affect family offices and fundamentally threatening their operating structure and methods, writes Farnoush Farsiar for EU Today.

More often, family offices cater to the young and more technologically adept generation. Farnoush Farsiar The financial crisis and democratisation of trading through online platforms have made all clients, irrespective of age, more interested in their investments and want to have more knowledge and more involvement and have lost the desire to have discretionary portfolio mandates managed at arm's length.

These changes occur during a time of the economic and political crisis. Offices that attempt to continue their old methods will soon be relegated to the very individuals they were created to help. They must change their approach to become more entrepreneurial and provide an attractive offering for UHNWIs.

Family offices are diverse in their size and size and. Farnoush Farsiar But, they must be able to focus on agility and streamlining their offerings and not try to become experts in each subject. The best customer service will be provided by a smaller team of advisors who have the ability to quickly implement new technologies and also bring in external experts as needed. Farnoush Farsiar As these changes necessitate the blurring of lines between private banking and family offices, successful firms will be those that can maintain the trust and loyalty of their clients. trust that a family office has while staying ahead of the curve with sourcing deals and adopting technology.

The success will come from the ability to capitalize on more traditional, network and reputation-based strategies for deal sourcing as well as using online tools to find deals and opportunities. Online deal sourcing platforms are just one of the tools wealth managers and agile private offices can readily install as opposed to large bankers who are ensnared in bureaucratic red tape. They allow dealmakers to review and access a huge variety of deals at the same time, resulting in a significant savings of time and money.

Other services online that are changing the way family offices communicate with their customers include dashboard services, such as Wealthica that automatically consolidates the investments of a variety of sources, bringing customers into daily contact with their investments - which is a vast improvement over the days of wealth managers who gave periodic information on the status of their customers' money.

These tools are not the only way that wealth managers can boost the efficiency and speed of their work. Most important is their investment strategy. The benefit will be mixing traditional and innovative strategies. Keep searching for deals in the real estate market and also consider investing in previously unexplored areas for example, climate change or food security. Impact investing has definitely "arrived" in the world of family offices. https://twitter.com/brexitcentral/status/1151733390485467136 According to the UBS Global Family Office Report 2018 one-third of family-owned businesses are involved in impact investments with the majority expecting to expand their involvement in the near future. Although there are some issues regarding the field like the difficulty of measuring impact and due diligence, HNWIs/UHNWIs in the future will require family officers to have the ability to identify these opportunities. Plato Capital, my own boutique investment bank, draws from the expertise of its founders, who are from large banks as well as the technology industry to offer investment guidance that is entrepreneurial in focus. Our network and personal knowledge in the local area allows our clients to reduce risk and increase their capital returns.

Blending the old with the new, while adjusting to the changing needs of the new generation and being prepared to be risk-averse with their own methods and structures Wealth managers of all types can be successful and relevant even in the midst of turbulent times.
Read More: https://twitter.com/brexitcentral/status/1151733390485467136