As we approach the end of our financial year, it provides an opportunity to review the last 12 months, look forward to FY25/26 and understand the areas SaaS providers such as Aiviq can, and do, play in supporting the sector.
Navigating Transformation Amid Market Pressures
The asset and wealth management industry faced a pivotal year in 2024, marked by persistent market challenges and an unprecedented push toward digital transformation. As interest rates remain elevated, traditional managers continue grappling with client preferences for cash allocations and passive investments, intensifying pressure on fees and margins.
At the time of writing, seismic geopolitical shifts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and America are rewriting the rules of foreign policy and global trade dynamics. The rapid pace of political developments has markets constantly adjusting, creating volatility that's driving investment managers to intensify cost discipline.
Industry giants are responding through strategic consolidation, with notable merger activity reshaping the competitive landscape. These larger firms leverage technological capabilities not only for operational efficiency but as catalysts for successful post-merger integration. Meanwhile, boutique and mid-sized managers are carving out specialised niches, differentiating themselves through targeted expertise and digital-first client experiences.
Technology investment remains non-negotiable despite cost pressures. Firms across the spectrum are accelerating AI adoption for portfolio management, embracing cloud infrastructure for scalability, and automating middle and back-office operations. This digital push aims to meet evolving client demands for personalised solutions, real-time transparency, and seamless digital interactions.
However, the transformation journey isn't without challenges. Legacy system modernisation, cybersecurity enhancements, and regulatory compliance automation require significant capital investment at a time when margins are already compressed. Successful firms in 2024 are those striking the delicate balance between essential technology investment and near-term profitability.
As the industry navigates this complex landscape, one thing becomes clear: the traditional asset management model is evolving. Winners will be those who can execute digital transformation while maintaining distinctive value propositions in an increasingly competitive market.
Key Trends Shaping 2025-2026
Success in 2025 will depend on firms' ability to execute digital transformation while managing costs and delivering distinctive value propositions. This requires balanced investment in technology modernisation, talent development, and operational efficiency.
Rapid Digital Transformation
Given the complexity of such change, strategic partnerships with fintech specialists and established technology providers can optimise costs and accelerate digital transformation initiatives.
The successful execution of modern wealth management strategies increasingly depends on robust digital infrastructure. Leveraging proven, cloud-native solutions with established integration frameworks helps firms enhance client experience and operational efficiency while reducing time-to-market.
Key technological priorities include: platform consolidation across business lines, support for alternative investments and digital assets, unified global architecture to eliminate regional fragmentation, and open APIs enabling seamless integration with broader enterprise systems and third-party solutions.
The shift toward cloud computing and digital platforms introduces cybersecurity considerations. Partnering with vendors holding current ISO 27001:2022 certification, Cyber Essentials Plus and SOC 2 Type II attestations helps firms manage digital transformation risks while meeting regulatory requirements for data protection, operational resilience and privacy.
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Our Global Vision
Aiviq delivers market-leading cloud technology and innovation to power our partners' digital transformation globally. Our enterprise-grade platform is built for scalability and security, with robust ISMS certification renewed annually through independent auditors to ensure the highest standards of data protection and compliance.
Aiviq directly addresses a critical industry pain point: fragmented and inefficient data management that costs the financial sector over £1 billion annually. By creating a unified view of customers and distributors, we empower asset managers to optimise their operations across three key dimensions: enhancing sales team performance through better targeting and engagement; elevating service delivery with comprehensive client insights, and strengthening redemption risk management through early warning indicators.
Our Client Book of Record (CBOR) solution represents a breakthrough in financial data management. By combining advanced machine learning algorithms with human expertise, we automate complex data processes while maintaining accuracy and control.
The Integration Hub serves as a central nervous system, enabling seamless bi-directional data flow between our platform and essential business systems including CRM platforms, analytics tools, and cloud infrastructure. This creates a connected ecosystem that eliminates data silos and enables real-time decision making.
Product & Service Innovation
Our transformation from a European to Global platform this year marks a pivotal evolution, as Aiviq introduced a "follow the sun" approach for worldwide support and data processing. This expansion includes coverage across EMEA, Asia Pacific, and North America, supported by over 300 client data connectors.
Aiviq's product development is driven by deep market understanding, with our teams conducting thousands of client meetings each year. This direct engagement has informed our 12 product releases in 2024 and sparked Aiviq to initiate an industry-wide initiative with leading asset managers to enhance data standards.
We continuously evolve our product alongside our user community, staying ahead of industry changes through regular updates. We add new data integrations, features, investment vehicle support (including alternatives and ETFs), and analytics capabilities even after implementation. This protects managers from operational disruptions caused by fragmented data while enhancing client insights and management information - giving them a competitive edge in today's data-driven marketplace.
Looking Back
Through 2024, we were thrilled to unveil Project Polaris, revolutionising account mastering and client matching with a powerful workbench that centralises global entity information (now also including US Retail advisors) and streamlining attribution, servicing, and reporting workflows. We have also expanded global reporting features to ensure Aiviq can fully reconcile cross-border flows relating to fund of funds, institutional cross-bookings and sub-advised business – daily.
Through our global support model, Aiviq users now have access to automated daily sales and finance workflows, including intelligent file tracking dashboards and new trade recognisance interfaces to bring firm-wide AUM reporting under a single operating model.
To support customers continuously seeking methods to improve commercial oversight and analytics around their distributor agreements, this year we have made onboarding the back-book of existing financial terms into Aiviq over 3x faster, focusing on advanced data integrations and major enhancements to our data capture interface. In parallel, we have expanded support for non-standard term types and provided faster, deeper commercial analytics - revenue, rebates and net revenue - changing the way our customers think about the value of their client relationships.
Looking Forward
We are extremely excited to now be a Bridgepoint portfolio company following their investment in 2024. Bridgepoint are one of the world's leading quoted private asset growth investors and have a fantastic history and reputation for building exceptional, strong businesses.
Working with Bridgepoint will allow us to increase and accelerate our investments to the benefit of our current and future customers. We are currently finalising the value creation plan and we look forward to sharing more about the numerous initiatives identified soon.
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