By Shri Krishnansen Posted on 12.03.2025
With 68 percent of investors now expecting their provider to deliver an experience that is “on par with” leading born-digital companies, the pressure is on to accelerate modernisation.
However, there is still a long way to go before the wealth management sector matches the level of tech adoption seen in other industries – for example, entertainment, travel and real estate.
This point is underpinned by a 2024 LSEG report, which revealed that 44 percent of wealth industry businesses were still “at a mid-implementation” stage of AI-enabled, automated activities, while 48 percent were said to be at an “advanced” stage.
The key to automating wealth management services
No matter where you are on your journey into the world of AI and automation, understanding the technology behind these innovations is essential to success.
We’re talking about the all-important API (application programming interface) – a technical and metaphorical key that opens the door to countless possibilities to transform your wealth management business.
APIs allow different systems to share data, enabling AI and automation to function. For example, a compelling use case in wealth management is financial reporting powered by a reasoning-AI model.
The model collates and analyses data from different systems to gain context, before presenting advisors or end users with up-to-date insights of a financial position. It can even pull data from market platforms to make projections on how investments might perform over a given period of time.
This enables clients to make smarter decisions about their wealth.
Another exciting use case is personalised portfolio construction, where an AI model assesses client risk profiles to create and manage tailored portfolios, performing tasks such as placing trades, changing contributions and delivering instructions for withdrawals.
The important factor with these use cases is that they are powered by APIs that communicate securely through the internet, and enable the AI to act and implement changes – either autonomously or under human instruction.
Crucially, this can only happen where the necessary open-API endpoints exist. Sadly, these remain uncommon across wealthtech solutions, meaning many core platforms are simply incompatible with AI models.
However, more advanced systems, like WealthOS, have ‘AI ready’ open APIs and feature built-in safety mechanisms that allow ‘four-eye’ checks. These provide the option to introduce additional approvals for any AI instructions in line with workflows and permissions.
Rigour and security is fundamental to API design
When it comes to the API design itself, security and compliance are paramount, particularly in the context of sensitive financial data sharing. APIs must also be stable, come with good documentation, be developer friendly and compatible with all systems regardless of their age.
Scalability matters too. And this is best enabled by cloud-based architecture which can handle huge increases in demand without the need to install expensive new hardware.
By ensuring these attributes, wealth management providers can deliver a glitch-free and accurate user experience, allowing teams to focus on business growth and superior customer service.
For WealthOS, API rigour is one of our founding principles – see our COO Chamat Arambewela’s blog to learn more.
Indeed, we were born automated and remain committed to the goal of automating everything that moves through the wealth management value chain, whether that’s the functions of customer-facing providers or their infrastructure suppliers.
Thanks to this approach, our robust API suite is ready to power generative, reasoning and agentic artificial intelligence solutions that are removing manual inputs and transforming wealth management for both professionals and end users alike.
To understand how WealthOS’ APIs can accelerate AI adoption and automation within your business, contact us today.
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