PIMFA launches Wealthtech platform

7 May 2022

Wealth management trade association PIMFA has launched a new platform designed to drive collaboration between WealthTechs and wealth management and advice firms.

PIMFA WealthTech has been developed in response to several drivers of digital transformation, including the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on advice models, shifting demographics and legislative changes. All of these changes are reshaping business models and accelerating the need for wealth management and advice firms to focus on the use of technology-based solutions to enhance their products and services, the group said.

PIMFA said many firms are already recognising that their future success will depend on better use of customer data and technology such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud-based infrastructure and social and mobile technologies.

The new platform, which is working with Morningstar as its principal strategic partner, will focus on key issues impacting the sector from how tech is being applied across the industry, to customer acquisition and onboarding, product structuring and development, investment management and execution, portfolio management, account administration and after sales client reporting and servicing.

It will also explore the role of technology in supporting new trends such as ESG and the emergence of Open Wealth.

Liz Field, chief executive of PIMFA, said: “The way in which wealth management and advice firms engage with their customers, the amount of data required to service those customers and the challenges of operating in an increasingly digitised environment mean that all firms recognise the need to enhance their proposition through better technology.

“Enhancing existing technology is a challenge as well as identifying the right solutions to enhance existing capabilities and some firms find starting the process daunting, being unsure of what technology they need or which providers to speak to. PIMFA WealthTech will help solve many of these problems and I’m delighted that PIMFA, with the support of Morningstar, is able to offer a platform for WealthTechs and wealth management and advice firms to come together to collaborate and work effectively to enhance the products and services our industry has to offer our clients.”

Anastasia Georgiou, head of adviser solutions, EMEA at Morningstar, commented: “Digital transformation and innovation put the customer centre stage. In a world where we have a proliferation of data, changing consumer preferences, the growth of sustainable investing and increased regulation, wealth firms need support – the PIMFA WealthTech platform is a hugely important initiative doing just that.”

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