Asset & Wealth Management
For asset and wealth managers and platforms. We build the client reporting, reconciliation, digital service and operations behind the advice, and give no advice.
Our perspective
A wealth manager's quarterly client report draws on the custodian, the portfolio management system, the CRM, the fee schedule and often a spreadsheet that reconciles them. When one source is late or disagrees, the report goes out late or carries an adjustment nobody can explain to the client. THEFOCUS is not authorised by the FCA and does not give investment advice or manage money. Our work sits behind the advice: the data and reconciliations, client reporting, digital service and the operations that keep them accurate.
Market signals
01
Assets managed in the UK grew 11% in 2025 to a record £11.1 trillion. Overseas clients accounted for 53% of the total, and retail became the largest client group at 30%.
02
The FCA reported in August 2026 that the wealth managers it supervises in its wealth management portfolio serve more than 5.5 million retail clients and manage almost £1 trillion of assets.
03
From 11 October 2027, transferable securities traded on a UK trading venue and settled through a UK central securities depository must settle on a T+1 basis unless exempt.
How we help clients
Client reporting from reconciled data
TF-06Technology & DataWe connect custodian, portfolio system, CRM and fee data, reconcile them daily and generate client reports from the reconciled set, with every adjustment logged and explained.
Revenue, fees and cost to serve
TF-08FinanceFee income, platform and custody costs and adviser time allocated by client segment show which relationships, products and service levels earn their cost, and support the fair-value assessment the firm itself signs off.
Onboarding and servicing workflow
TF-07OperationsClient onboarding, document collection, address and bank-detail changes and transfers mapped and automated, with time per step recorded, so the operations team sees where cases wait.
Client portal and digital service
TF-04GrowthValuations, documents, messages and appointment booking in one client portal, measured for use and drop-off, reduce the calls and emails that fill an adviser's week.
Consumer Duty management information
TF-10RiskOutcome data on contact times, complaints, fees and client understanding, gathered into board-level MI with definitions and sources documented. Judgement on the outcomes stays with the firm's compliance function.
Data integration after an acquisition
TF-03M&AWhen a firm buys a book of clients or another firm, we map, cleanse and migrate client and holdings data and run the reconciliations that show nothing was lost in transfer.
What changes next
T+1 settlement in October 2027
Halving the settlement cycle moves reconciliation, trade allocation and cash management into the day of the trade. Firms that still reconcile overnight from files will need data that arrives and matches the same day.
Targeted support changes the client base
Firms authorised for the FCA's targeted support regime have been able to offer suggestions to groups of consumers with shared characteristics since 6 April 2026. Doing so needs clean segmentation data and MI on outcomes, which is data work behind a regulated service.
Consolidation and new technology
The FCA describes a sector that is consolidating and using more technology, including AI. Each acquisition adds another data set to reconcile, and each AI tool adds a governance question about what data it reads and who checks its output.
Business challenges
01
Reports assembled by hand
Client reports are compiled from several systems and checked line by line each quarter. The work peaks at the same time every quarter and errors reach clients.
02
Fee and value data that does not reconcile
Fees charged, fees disclosed and fees recorded in the ledger come from different systems. Fair-value and cost-disclosure work starts by reconciling them, every year.
03
Onboarding that takes weeks
Identity checks, documents and transfers in progress are tracked in email and spreadsheets. Clients wait, and nobody can say which step is slow.
04
MI that answers last year's question
Board MI is built from whatever data was easy to extract. The questions the board and the regulator now ask, on outcomes for different client groups, need data the firm has but has not joined.
Where the opportunity sits
Reports produced from one reconciled set
Daily reconciliation turns the quarterly report into an output of data that has already been checked, and frees the time spent on manual checks.
Cost to serve by segment
Knowing what each client segment costs to serve lets the firm design service levels and fees it can defend in its own value assessment.
Clean data before the next acquisition
A firm with documented data structures and reconciliations can integrate an acquired book in weeks instead of carrying two systems for a year.
How we approach it
We start read-only with the custodian and platform feeds, the portfolio management system, the CRM, the fee schedule and billing records, existing reports and MI packs. We follow one client from onboarding to quarterly report and note every point where data is re-keyed, reconciled by hand or estimated. Findings become a prioritised task list, each item with an owner and an acceptance check. If the client wants us to build, the same team delivers the data connections, reconciliations, reports, workflows and client portal, and leaves them in the firm's own systems. THEFOCUS is not authorised by the FCA. We do not give investment or financial advice, manage portfolios, arrange deals or hold client money, and regulatory interpretation, compliance sign-off and legal advice stay with the firm's own compliance function and advisers.
How our experience is evidenced
No anonymised engagement in asset or wealth management is published. This page describes our approach and the capabilities we would apply: data integration, reconciliation, management reporting and process automation, as we use them in other sectors. FINMETRA, our financial-data product, is in design and has no deployments.
How an engagement with THEFOCUS starts
A first conversation is about your situation. If there is a fit, we propose a scoped diagnostic with a fixed deliverable before any larger commitment.
Discuss this with us01
A working conversation
Forty-five minutes with the person who would lead the work. We ask about the decision, the systems behind it and the deadline.
02
A scoped diagnostic
Read-only access, a fixed timeframe and a written finding: what the records show, what it costs and what to change first.
03
A plan you can act on
Changes, owners, measures and exclusions in writing. The same team then builds and measures, or hands over cleanly.
- One accountable team
- The people who diagnose also build the systems and measure the result.
- Partners chosen per problem
- Independent specialists join for the parts that need them, under one contract.
- Records before dashboards
- Orders, ledgers and logs are reconciled before any recommendation depends on them.
Questions executives ask
Are you authorised by the FCA?
No. We do not give investment or financial advice, manage portfolios or hold client money. Our work is the data, reporting, digital service and operations behind a regulated firm's activities.
Can you help with Consumer Duty?
We can gather and join the data your outcome MI needs, document how each measure is defined and build the reports. Whether outcomes are good, and what to do about them, is for your board and compliance function to decide.
Have you worked with asset or wealth managers?
We have no published engagement in this sector. A proposal would set out which parts of the scope we have delivered in other sectors, such as data reconciliation and management reporting.
Will you need access to client data?
Usually yes, read-only and under your data protection controls. We agree the access, the data processing terms and where data is held before any work starts.
Discuss this with us
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