Driving innovation, data analysis and digital portfolios: PWM Tea Break

Sharmil Patwa, founder of the Opus Una wealthtech consultancy in London, and a former technology leader with Barclays Wealth and Deutsche Bank, chats with PWM about the importance of analysing the vast swathes of data being gathered by private banks to benefit both clients and shareholders.

Over a cup of Earl Grey tea he discusses with PWM's Yuri Bender the economics of client advice, the transformative power of artificial intelligence and the increasing trend for digitalisation of wealth management, with human involvement becoming a luxury for the richest investors. Even traditionally manual and face-to-face processes such as succession planning are increasingly subject to digital transformation.

Yuri Bender: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Yuri Bender from PWM, and I'd like to welcome you to our weekly tea break. Today's special guest was formerly with Barclays Wealth and Deutsche Bank. He now heads up the Opus Una Financial Services Consulting. He is the tech expert, Sharmil Patwa. It's great to see you again, Sharmil.

Sharmil Patwa: Thanks for having me, Yuri. Pleased to be here.

Yuri Bender: And what kind of tea are you drinking today, Sharmi?

Sharmil Patwa: Today I'm drinking Earl Grey. Earl Grey is infused with bergamot oil, which comes from the bergamot orange. I love everything to do with oranges, so now I understand why I like Earl Grey.

Yuri Bender: In the wealth management world, Sharmil, isn't there enough of this sitting down, having a cup of tea, and swapping ideas? Or is it now all about fast digital reactions, with clients just picking something off a menu quickly? Does the old idea of sitting down with clients, debating the issues, talking about geopolitics, or discussing succession plans over a cup of tea still happen?

Sharmil Patwa: Yeah, I think it still happens, but sitting around having a conversation does cost money. It very much depends on the assets that the clients you're dealing with have. There’s a close correlation between the value of a client’s assets and the amount of time you can spend talking to them. As you move to less wealthy clients, the opportunities for face-to-face conversations, whether over a cup of tea or otherwise, decrease somewhat. But that doesn’t mean those clients can't have a great experience.

Yuri Bender: We’ve got two articles this week about succession planning, which is often seen as the softer side of wealth management. Do you find that area being increasingly digitised as well when you visit the banks to conduct your projects?

Sharmil Patwa: Those pieces were very focused on wealthy families, and wealthy families’ priorities are often wealth preservation and succession planning. When you're talking about less wealthy clients, technology enablement is essential for delivering services. If you think about their requirements, they are actually quite similar to those of ultra-high-net-worth individuals. They need someone to understand their goals and objectives, which is the planning piece, and they need a way of executing to achieve those goals and objectives, which is the investment management piece. The fundamental needs are the same, but the delivery method needs to be different. The cost of having an advisor speak to them is key.

Yuri Bender: All about cost.

Sharmil Patwa: It’s all about cost. What I think is becoming increasingly possible is for clients at a lower level of wealth to have a really incredible experience, but that experience is massively technology-enabled. It’s perfectly possible for a self-directed client to go through a guided journey where they create a financial plan and then execute that plan through exposure to a whole-of-market platform. We have artificial intelligence, but we don’t have artificial emotion. There is still very much a place for the advisor, particularly when dealing with emotive subjects.

Yuri Bender: And also, Sharmil, in recommending the thematic investments you mentioned earlier. My colleague Elisa has just conducted our annual global asset tracker survey, where we interview fifty chief investment officers from leading global private banks, including some you’ve worked for in the past. I think they now advise around twenty-four trillion in assets. When we spoke to the big players, like UBS Wealth Management, they’re predicting about a 10% annual return this year for typical portfolios, despite the tariffs, Trump, and market volatility. They say that tech stocks and artificial intelligence will continue to drive markets. As someone who lives and breathes technology, do you believe that AI will continue to drive returns, business, society, and wealth management?

Sharmil Patwa: Yeah, absolutely. I believe in the transformative power of artificial intelligence, both in terms of automating processes and providing data insights and actionable intelligence. AI has been widely adopted for automating customer service-related tasks. The current experience is like talking to someone in an offshore call centre — it’s not perfect, but it's moving in the right direction. However, I think we’ll see even more interesting and complex use cases, particularly concerning the analysis of large volumes of data, creating insights, and delivering actionable intelligence. These will manifest in areas like research and investment management.

Yuri Bender: Actually managing the portfolios. How far away are we from that? We have robo-advisors already. Do you think we should trust computers and AI to manage portfolios for us?

Sharmil Patwa: I think we’ve been trusting computers for investment management tasks for quite some time. Algorithmic trading has been around since the 1970s, and index tracking funds have existed for a long time. Those are algorithmically driven.

Yuri Bender: But not the whole portfolios, particularly for wealthy individuals. Just parts of them.

Sharmil Patwa: Exactly. When it comes to the actual management of portfolios, that’s another challenge. In the short term, we’ll see widespread adoption of AI-driven technologies to support investment decision-making. There’s a lot of concern at the moment about leaving AI unsupervised. Some of that concern is legitimate, but I think some of it is also a bit protectionist. We will eventually reach a point where we can leave AI to run portfolios, but I’m not sure when that will happen.

Yuri Bender: My colleague Ali, I think he’s in Paris today interviewing some wealth managers, and he wrote about the digitalisation of portfolio management. He’s also been writing about the use of data, something you mentioned earlier. Ali was speaking with US wealth manager AlTi Tiedemann Global, who work with a lot of families, and they were discussing a structural problem: the analysis of data missing from some key investment decisions. This was a particularly interesting point, and they said it’s especially prevalent in private markets and impact investments. Sharmil, data is being collected by businesses on every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, as The Police once sang — there’s the financial services connection! But is there an issue with how well this data is being analysed and deployed?

Sharmil Patwa: It’s relatively easy to capture data, but once you’ve captured it, you’ve got to clean it, store it, analyse it, and turn that analysis into information, then insights. After that, you need to turn those insights into something actionable — actionable intelligence. Yes, financial services companies are pretty good at collecting data, but turning that data into actionable intelligence is something they’re finding much harder. A lack of standardisation around that data, especially in private markets, is an issue, as they’re not required to report in the same way public markets are. Artificial intelligence is getting better at dealing with unstructured data, so I think many of the issues around investment decision-making in private markets will start to be alleviated as AI improves in this area.

Yuri Bender: I think our next challenge, Sharmil, will be analysing which type of tea our guests drink and how that relates to the accuracy of their predictions about the wealth management market! We're really pleased you joined us today, Sharmil. Sadly, that’s all we have time for. Sharmil, and hopefully many of our viewers, will be with us for the Wealth Tech Awards in May, where Sharmil is a judge. So please look out for our coverage when all the tech bros and sisters will be in town. Please keep sending in your questions for our guests. You can watch previous episodes of Tea Break on the PWM Net website and also on YouTube. See you next time!

Further reading:

How family offices are adapting to global changes: Family Matters

Handing over the bat to next generation wealth advisers

Investors weigh up Europe’s investment appeal in a volatile market

Private bank CIOs shift strategies as market uncertainty grows

Wealthy families urged to invest for societal impact

Wealth managers begin journey towards tech-led portfolio allocation