The 2025 Fintech Revolution: What It Means for Wealth Management

While real financial advice still needs a qualified, registered professional to be involved, tech like AI in wealth management is helping more people find the right guidance, and help financial planners become more efficient. Natural language models can help answer basic questions and signpost users to detailed resources, as well as helping in areas such as assessing attitude to risk.

There’s much talk in the industry of the “advice gap” leaving many people who need financial advice without access to it. Fintech solutions like AI can help bridge that gap. 

While financial decision making can’t (and shouldn’t) be automated, there are many areas of wealth management that can be. Technology like open banking and APIs allow data from various bank accounts and investment portfolios to create a data feed into one place.

You no longer need to print off bank statements and portfolio valuations and turn up to meet your financial planner with a stack of papers. They can have read-only access to this information at all times, keeping meetings efficient and value packed.

Cashflow modelling tools aren’t new, but their capabilities and the way they’re accessed is improving dramatically. Where previously clients would need to wait until their annual review to see an updated cashflow model, many fintech solutions now give them control of their cashflow forecast on their phone or tablet.

For advisers, improvements in functionality gives the ability to model the impact of an ever-growing range of complex scenarios and strategies, leading to more informed advice.

One of the major strengths of technology like AI is the ability to analyse vast amounts of data, instantly. While your financial adviser can’t go through your entire banking history with a fine-tooth comb to find trends or anomalies, AI can.

Not only can past spending patterns be useful for review purposes, but all that data can be used to inform AI-powered predictions for the future, and track deviations over time. This is the kind of technology that is growing and improving all the time, and while wealth management apps may not be there just yet, it’s where it’s heading in 2025 and beyond.

While potentially not as obvious to investors, fintech is a huge and growing trend in investment management. All investment managers, from fully automated robo-advisers to bespoke, fully- active discretionary investment managers, use tech in their processes.

Whether it’s for research, trading algorithms or automated rebalancing, tech integration helps to reduce costs and improve efficiency. The good news for investors is that there is a huge amount of downward pressure on investment fees in the industry right now, and fintech offers a way for investment managers to cut costs and cut fees, without affecting their ability to deliver returns.

Digital assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum and NFTs have been around for some time now. They offer the potential for eye-watering returns, in exchange for equally shocking levels of volatility. It goes without saying that digital assets shouldn’t make up too much of your portfolio, but they can be beneficial in adding diversification and exposure to high returns during bull runs.

Technology and traditional finance are finally finding a middle ground when it comes to digital assets, with investment vehicles like cryptocurrency ETFs making this asset class more accessible for investors.

For clients, fintech offers clients the potential for deeper insights and a more active role in their financial future. In the past, it was all or nothing. You either needed to invest your money without any guidance or help from anyone, or you handed it over completely to a wealth manager.

Fintech is allowing this relationship to become more natural. Guidance and advice are more accessible than ever using digital platforms, while investors who have a relationship with a financial adviser can always be informed on the performance of their funds and the position of their cashflow plan.

At the same time, the drive for greater efficiency with things like automation technology is helping to bring down costs and leading to greater levels of transparency in the industry.

Fintech companies aren’t replacing financial advisers. Instead, they're allowing them to offer more services to clients, help more people, and bring down their operating costs.

In essence, AI in wealth management and similar tools can act as a data and communication bridge between financial advisers and their clients. Rather than relying on a few irregular touch points throughout the year, advisers can be continuously kept up to date on their client's financial position.

This helps them to better understand their client’s needs and be more proactive in their advice and guidance.