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      Innovation is reshaping wealth and asset management. Firms are investing in artificial intelligence, modern platforms, new products and evolving client propositions. But innovation is not confined to the services firms provide or the technologies they deploy. It is also changing how their core functions operate and contribute to the business.

      Finance is an important example. Its responsibilities for reporting, controls, governance and compliance remain fundamental. Yet fee compression, rising costs, product complexity and pressure to invest for growth mean leadership teams increasingly need finance to provide insight as well as assurance.

      The most impactful finance functions help leadership understand where value is created, where it is lost and what should happen next.

      Michael Storey

      Partner

      KPMG in the UK

      Can finance answer the questions that matter?

      Consider the questions that boards and executive teams increasingly want answered:

      • Which products are genuinely profitable once pricing arrangements, servicing requirements and operational costs are considered?
      • Where are we growing assets but diluting margin?
      • How does profitability vary across products, channels, geographies and service models?
      • Which investment initiatives are generating meaningful returns?
      • If we win another £100 million of assets, how much additional profit will we actually create?
      • Where should scarce capital be deployed to maximise future value creation?

      Answering these questions consistently requires more than improvements to traditional reporting. It requires innovation in finance data, capabilities and ways of working.

      From data to decision

      Many finance functions still struggle to provide these insights consistently and quickly. Information on Assets Under Management (AUM), flows, clients, products and financial performance often sits across multiple systems, functions and geographies. Considerable effort is spent reconciling it before analysis can begin.

      Leading organisations understand that data is the foundation of better decisions. The difficulty is bringing dispersed information together into a trusted, governed and consistent view of performance.

      The objective is not simply faster reporting. It is a reliable foundation that lets leaders focus on decisions rather than debate the numbers. Trusted, understood data enables confident profitability analysis, scenario evaluation and assessment of value creation. The result is that finance can move beyond explaining what happened and begin influencing what happens next.

      Turning information into enterprise value

      AUM remains an important measure of scale, but it provides only a partial view of performance. Products with similar AUM can create very different economic value once pricing, rebates, servicing requirements and complexity are considered. Client relationships generating similar revenue may also deliver very different profitability.

      Emerging and existing technology platforms such as Room Zero, aiviq, Fishtank and Anaplan illustrate how innovation is changing finance and commercial insight. By bringing together assets, flows and revenue across products, channels and client relationships, they can create a stronger foundation for profitability analysis and decision-making

      Innovation lies not only in consolidating the information, but in reducing the distance between information and action.

      Combining trusted commercial data with profitability insight and operational metrics shifts the question from “How much did we grow?” to “What did that growth contribute, why, and what should we do next?” Profitability becomes a decision-support capability, revealing the consequences of winning, losing or reshaping business.

      The next evolution: from reporting to dialogue

      Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly play an important role in this evolution, but perhaps not in the way many expect. The opportunity is not another dashboard. It allows leaders to interact directly with trusted information, explore strategic questions and understand decisions in real time.

      Historically, an executive asking about client profitability or a pricing change would send a request to finance. Data would be gathered, assumptions agreed and results returned days or weeks later.

      The combination of trusted data, clearly understood business rules, transparent assumptions and AI has the potential to change that model fundamentally.

      Rather than requesting reports, leaders can ask questions.

      “If we win £100 million of assets in this strategy, what is the likely impact on revenue, profitability and return on capital?”

      “How would margins change if rebate levels were reduced in this channel?”

      “Which products, clients and channels are creating the most economic value?”

      AI's value is its ability to interrogate trusted, governed data, apply transparent assumptions and provide insight in seconds rather than days. It accelerates decisions, improves consistency and allows finance professionals to spend less time producing analysis and more time interpreting, challenging and advising.

      In this context, AI is not replacing finance. It is amplifying its ability to support better decisions.

      Finance in the lead

      Innovation in wealth and asset management is not confined to products, client propositions or investment processes. It is also reshaping the functions that support and steer the organisation.

      For finance, the opportunity is to connect data, technology and commercial understanding in new ways. This can allow the function to move from periodic reporting towards more dynamic insight, helping leaders understand trade-offs, direct investment and distinguish growth from genuine value creation.

      The future finance function will not simply explain performance more efficiently. It will use innovation to help shape the decisions that determine it.

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