The more relationships with banks and other financial institutional relationships a UHNWI has, the longer it takes their advisors to manually consolidate data from these institutions. Doing so is often a question of logging into online portals, downloading statements, copying statement data into spreadsheets or building up data channels to various custodians.
Online portals are not the only way to access client data. Many institutions support application programming interfaces (APIs), which are essentially “pipes” through which UHNWIs can authorise the automatic transfer of data to trusted third parties.
For complex portfolios, the key advantage of APIs is that they enable data from multiple sources to be consolidated in near real-time into a single, centralised location.
Ideally, this centralised location will be a platform that automatically optimises the incoming data for analysis, runs a wide range of asset-specific analytical processes, and visualises the results in intuitive dashboards. These dashboards can provide as much or as little detail as required, from the overall portfolio mix to the performance of individual holdings.
Since the data is handled continuously, all relevant information is updated in near real-time. Notifications can be promptly sent to clients regarding changes in markets, allocations, balances, asset values, and more. If such a change signals a need to rebalance a portfolio in line with an asset diversification strategy, the portfolio’s owner will be informed within minutes.
In addition to automation functionalities, a sophisticated platform of this type will also have advanced features for tracking and organising workflows around non-bankable assets, which are almost always present in an UHNWI’s total wealth.
