Global wealth continues its upward trajectory, reaching $305 trillion, with HNWI wealth growing 4.2% and their population expanding by 2.6%. Yet, wealth management remains one of the least digitally mature businesses in universal banking. Finacle’s latest Innovation in Retail Banking survey underscores the gap: only 9% of the banking executives repofrt wealth digital transformation initiatives deployed at scale and delivering as expected. The wealth management space trails behind business and commercial banking segment where this proportion is 12% and far behind the retail banking segment which has the highest maturity of 31%. For the wealth space, this is not a marginal issue, it’s a structural vulnerability. Advisory workflows remain fragmented, RM productivity constrained, and client experiences uneven at a time when expectations are being reset by digital-first challengers.
To stay relevant and capture the next decade of growth, banks must rethink how they deliver wealth services, moving to operating models that make outcomes smarter, faster, and consistently defensible. This means eliminating fragmentation, embedding AI-empowered intelligence into every client interaction, and simplifying complex products into transparent, actionable solutions. The institutions that achieve this will not just retain assets, they will redefine the standard for modern wealth engagement.
Against this backdrop, five shifts will define the wealth winners in 2026 and beyond with the potential to convert digital investment capability into net-new assets, deeper relationships, and lasting loyalty.
Author - Abhra Roy
Senior Product Line Manager, Infosys Finacle
AI-native advisory
By 2026, AI will move from productivity experiments to an operating layer for wealth advisory. The value is material: McKinsey estimates AI can unlock value equivalent to 25–40% of an average asset manager’s cost base, across distribution, investment processes, compliance, and software delivery.
Across wealth functions, the winning model will be hybrid advisory: relationship managers and advisors leveraging AI copilots for research, scenarioing, and next-best actions, while retaining clear human intervention at critical moments so advice still carries a trusted, accountable face. In parallel, banks will industrialize front-office prediction, using AI to analyze portfolios, behaviors, and market signals to predict market dynamics with precision. Additionally, in the front office, generative AI will be consumed heavily for customer service and engagement.
In the back office, where reconciliations across cash, securities, and transactions still absorb significant capacity, banks are increasingly building agentic AI models to investigate breaks, orchestrate exception handling, and route cases with controls, compressing cycles without weakening governance.
The Great Wealth Transfer
The largest demand shock in wealth is generational. UBS estimates roughly US$83 trillion will transfer over the next 20–25 years. A Capgemini report projects a similar arc, estimating about US$83.5 trillion will change hands by 2048, and warns that next-gen HNWIs will switch providers unless firms deliver personalized, digital-first experiences.
For banks, the risk is not abrupt churn but gradual erosion partial asset transfers, declining engagement, and loss of family-level relationships. Over time, this translates into lower lifetime value, higher acquisition costs, and structurally weaker franchise economics.
This is not simply a “better app” requirement. Younger cohorts are loyal to a different standard: transparency over mystique, evidence-based advice over generic allocation, and frictionless execution over paperwork and follow-ups. The wealth manager’s differentiation will therefore shift toward how confidently a bank can combine human judgement with digital clarity: making advice easier to understand, decisions easier to execute, and progress easier to monitor. Banks that modernize these journeys will defend assets through the transfer. Banks that do not will see attrition occur silently, one account at a time.
Platform Unification
HNIs in 2026 and beyond would want one coherent view of performance, risk, liquidity, and actions even when assets sit across multiple custodians, jurisdictions, and instruments. Fragmentation is now a loyalty risk because it shows up as inconsistent digital access and reporting: Capgemini finds 81% of next-gen HNWIs plan to switch away from their parents’ wealth manager, with lack of preferred digital channels a key trigger (46%).
The 2026 response is platform unification: a unified client-and-product data model, straight-through workflows, and open APIs that orchestrate onboarding, advice, trading, and servicing across channels. The design principle is simple: the client should not see the institution’s fragmentation. When the operating layer is unified, the interface becomes reliable - insights are explainable, alerts are consistent, and advisor collaboration is anchored to the same “source of truth,” enabling personalization at scale without weakening governance.
The objective is straightforward: reduce fragmentation so clients can see, compare, act, and monitor with confidence.
Tokenization and Digital Assets
Tokenization represents the next horizon: a future efficiency lever that will only compound value if today’s data foundations and operating controls are in place. It is moving fast from pilots to a credible wealth servicing lever: representing securities, funds, or private assets as digital tokens with embedded rules and auditable provenance. The appeal is not “crypto,” it is operational compression. Representing assets digitally with strong provenance can shorten settlement cycles, reduce reconciliation breaks, and enable more continuous servicing.
BCG and ADDX estimate tokenized assets could reach ~$16.1 trillion by 2030. BlackRock’s Larry Fink has argued, “every asset can be tokenized,” reflecting the direction of travel toward more programmable markets. For wealth firms, the 2026 agenda is “tokenization-ready” execution: strengthen data lineage, permissions, custody and key management, smart-contract governance, and auditability so tokenized holdings can be valued, reported, and advised with the same rigor as traditional assets.
Democratization of Asset Classes and Investment Products
Traditionally, many alternative return streams and portfolio diversifiers were something only big institutions or ultra-wealthy investors could access. Now, thanks to new fund structures, regulations and technology, banks are making a large variety of asset classes and products to the mass-affluent investors. This means that the next decade’s compounding AUM might be won earlier in the wealth continuum, among mass-affluent customers who are accumulating fast.
This is where product strategy must evolve. Mass affluent investors typically require high-quality alternatives packaged in simpler formats with flexible liquidity terms, lower minimums, and transparent reporting. The market is moving in this direction, with varied products like evergreen credit, senior secured loans, asset‑backed finance, real estate debt, etc., and regulation such as ELTIF 2.0 widening access to accessible alternatives.
In 2026 and beyond, banks’ advantage lies not in access alone, but in governance - curating exposure through suitability checks, liquidity labeling, concentration limits, and RM enablement. This risk-led packaging is what differentiates responsible wealth franchises from product marketplaces. It is where tomorrow’s HNIs are built, and where banks can lock in loyalty before larger balances arrive.
Operating doctrine for 2026 and beyond
In 2026, wealth management is being re-priced on one currency - trust delivered at digital speed. The message for banks is clear: Clients will stay with institutions that make decisions feel clear, execution feel effortless, and governance feel invisible but unmistakably strong. The banks that execute this successfully will compound trust into a durable moat and convert capability into growth (and wealth).
Related Case Studies
Let’s Discuss
Fill out the form below and we will get back to you shortly. Alternately, you can also contact our regional offices
