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For many years, family offices managed private wealth with a degree of personalisation and complexity that made advanced technology seem unnecessary. The world has since changed, and family offices have changed with it. They have grown, become more sophisticated, and are now far more demanding from an operational standpoint. Technology, once optional or even avoided, has become an essential prerequisite for success.
Modern family offices oversee a far broader spectrum of assets, ranging from traditional holdings - equities, funds, bonds, and fixed deposits - to alternative investments such as real estate, private equity, crypto, precious metals, art, and other collectibles. This multifaceted ecosystem creates new challenges: more data, additional processes, more points of contact, and heightened risks.
Although family offices are highly heterogeneous (no two are alike), most of them have relied on Excel as the primary tool for managing investment portfolios. Excel is undeniably accessible, familiar to almost everyone in finance, and highly adaptable to each family office’s specific requirements. Yet relying solely on spreadsheets in today’s environment brings significant limitations and risks. The sheer volume of transactions and the diversity of asset classes demand more sophisticated platforms capable of integrating, consolidating, and reporting in real time, with both granularity and context. Managing portfolios of this complexity without technological support is, at best, imprudent.
Beyond operational efficiency, specialized softwares provide analytical power that Excel simply cannot match. Advanced platforms make it effortless to assess portfolio performance across multiple asset classes, compare it against relevant market benchmarks, and gain a clear view of exposures by sector, geography and currency. In addition, the ability to benchmark objectively the performance of different managers or mandates provides invaluable insights into evaluating and optimising those relationships.
Risk management is another critical area in which specialized software offers a significant advantage. Tools for risk analytics, stress-testing, and scenario analysis help identify potential vulnerabilities and assess how a portfolio might behave under various market conditions. This capability is particularly relevant considering the wide-ranging and unexpected global events of recent years, which have had significant impacts on investments.
The end clients of family offices have evolved as well. They are not only better informed but also accustomed to immediacy and mobility. They expect to access their wealth information through secure portals, mobile apps, and customisable dashboards. They expect on-demand reports, intelligent alerts, and dynamic simulations. Quarterly meetings with PDF reports are no longer sufficient. The service must keep up with the pace clients are accustomed to in other areas of their lives.
Ownership structures have also become more complex—not only because family-owned companies increasingly hold cross-shareholdings, but also because a single individual may own assets directly and indirectly through multiple legal entities and corporate layers. Attempting to represent this reality without look-through visualisation tools and well-structured databases is an invitation to error. Technology is the only way to ensure clarity and traceability on such an intricate challenge.
A long-standing obstacle to the digitalisation of family offices has been the lack of integration with custodian banks. That, too, is changing. Banks have begun to offer APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for the automatic import of transactions, positions, and prices. Until recently, most of this work was done manually, based on monthly statements, invoices, and PDF reports. Semi-automated solutions that scrape data from bank portals and reports do exist, but they pose risks due to shared login credentials and frequent disruption whenever banks change their data-presentation formats. Direct API connections, by contrast, ensure both continuity and security. With APIs a new era begins, one of real-time integration, enabling more accurate, timely, and efficient management.
The industry now speaks of “Family Office 3.0”: a model that combines technological efficiency, strategic vision, respect for tradition, and the ability to scale while maintaining personalisation. This is not merely about digitising parts of the operation. True transformation involves re-thinking the entire model, with technology at the core. It also demands a rigorous culture of digital security, featuring strong authentication and full traceability.
This new generation of family offices represents a structural shift, leaving improvisation behind and embracing digital sophistication - not as a trend, but as an imperative of our time. Crossing this bridge is not simply a matter of modernisation. It is essential for continuity and for maximising the success of succession planning. Diversified wealth, complex structures, and high expectations cannot be managed with yesterday’s tools. Ultimately, technology does not diminish the value of tradition; rather, it ensures tradition stays alive.
This Article was published in FundsPeople, June 5th 2025.
