For many family offices, the risks are no longer theoretical. Governance is informal, reporting delayed, and portfolios are growing more complex by the quarter. Yet many still rely on basic spreadsheets to track billions. According to Copia Wealth, citing KPMG data from 2025, more than 57% of global family offices continue to use general tools like Excel for core financial reporting.
Family offices were once discreet custodians of generational wealth. In 2025, they are fast-moving, capital-rich operators reshaping global investment markets. UBS reports that the average family office now oversees about USD 1.1 billion in assets. With over 3,000 single-family offices worldwide managing more than USD 4.7 trillion, their footprint rivals that of institutional investors (UBS Global Family Office Report, 2025).
Industry research shows that all family offices outsource at least some functions. IT services rank as the third most commonly outsourced area, after legal and tax planning services. At the same time, cybersecurity was the second most common new service that family offices added over the last two years. As security concerns push family offices toward better technology solutions, partnering with an advanced digital wealth platform provider can become the foundation for effective operations across their entire service range.
A gentle ripple has become a deliberate current. High-net-worth families anchored in Europe are quietly expanding their private wealth operations to hubs such as Dubai and Singapore. This is not a retreat from Switzerland, which remains a cornerstone of global fiduciary trust, but a strategic broadening. The map of wealth management is not being redrawn in opposition, it’s being layered with new centres. The motive is not unkindness to tradition, but a desire for jurisdictions that offer agility, clarity, and optionality. As one adviser put it to the Financial Times, family offices in Dubai “can be quieter. That’s more desirable
Inheriting wealth offers opportunity, but often at the cost of autonomy. Across Europe, a generation of heirs is forging entrepreneurial paths of their own, balancing the freedom to innovate with the burden of family expectations. Their challenge is delicate: create independent ventures that satisfy personal ambition, yet remain anchored in the family’s legacy. As one Swiss heir remarked to a UBS roundtable: “I wanted to build something of my own, but respected the foundation that brought me here.”
Deciding whether to establish a family office is often one of the most important choices wealthy families make. A wide range of factors shape this decision. In this article, we examine three of them by comparing four wealthy families and their approaches to managing their fortunes.
María Asunción Aramburuzabala formed family office Tresalia Capital after her father Pablo – executive vice president of Grupo Modelo, the brewer of Corona beer that his own father Felix founded after the Mexican Revolution – died unexpectedly of cancer in 1995 at age 63 with no finalized succession plan. Today she is worth an estimated $8.2 billion, making her Mexico’s wealthiest woman and Latin America’s second after Chilean mining magnate Iris Fontbana. Her story holds three valuable lessons for today’s family office builders.
Today’s family offices face two challenges that seem to work against each other: keeping talented staff and controlling costs. Recent industry research shows this phenomenon to be widespread. Simply paying higher salaries is not the answer. The way forward is to invest in modern technology that transforms how family offices operate.
For ultra-wealthy families, a family bank represents both a powerful conceptual framework and, in some cases, a formally structured approach to deploying capital. More than just a financial tool, family banking creates a foundation for fostering legacy that extends far beyond numbers on balance sheets. Here we explore this model, explain how it integrates with family office operations, and highlight key considerations that modern family office builders should understand when implementing this time-tested approach.
For centuries, ultra-wealthy families have been relying on dedicated teams to manage their financial affairs. These teams’ methods, operational scopes, and sophistication have evolved significantly in response to economic shifts, technological advances, and evolving global opportunities. By examining these transitions, we uncover valuable lessons for wealth owners building family offices in the modern era.
According to the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), in 2024 there were more than $1 trillion in assets under management allocated towards achieving social and environmental benefits alongside financial returns. What are the most popular forms of these assets and how do family offices approach them? This article breaks down the key information.
In the realm of impact investing – making investments to simultaneously achieve financial returns and contribute to the greater good – blended finance is emerging as a popular strategy. In 2024, the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) found that 43% of surveyed impact investors said they had participated in a blended finance deal since 2021, and 24% said they planned to in the future. This article breaks down the basics UHNWIs should know about blended finance and its essential ingredient: catalytic capital.
Across Western Europe, ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) women are asserting an increasingly influential role in impact investing. They currently oversee some €4.6 trillion in assets, a sum set to swell by nearly half over the next decade (McKinsey & Company via Bloomberg, 2024). This rising financial influence is shifting private capital’s priorities. No longer content with purely financial returns, these investors seek to channel wealth toward causes that reflect their values. Digital platforms that offer transparency, control, and seamless alignment with personal convictions have become key tools in this transformation.
Impact investing – allocating capital to generate measurable social or environmental benefits alongside financial returns – has become a strategic choice for UHNWIs. Far from a passing trend, it aligns with their goals of creating lasting legacies while addressing pressing global challenges. This article explores five key reasons why.
Managing a family’s wealth has never been more challenging. Portfolio complexity is rising along with expectations for transparency, digital access, and compliance readiness. For family office professionals, traditional approaches involving periodic meetings to review spreadsheets and documentation are no longer sufficient. Fortunately, financial technology (fintech) companies can help advisors meet the expectations wealth owners have in the digital age. In this article, we shine a light on how the fintech we know best – ours – is doing just that.
For UHNWIs, selecting the right financial technology company — or fintech for short — is a high-stakes decision. Different types of fintechs serve different purposes, but one supporting wealth management demands extra scrutiny: It handles a wide variety of a wealth owner’s most sensitive data. The country where such a fintech company operates is a key factor in how this data is protected — and should be a key factor in the decision to work with this company.
In an era where digital breaches make headlines and banking giants can falter overnight, UHNWIs face ongoing challenges in safeguarding their wealth. This article explores how fintech firms are emerging as the new sentinels of financial security, offering enhanced protection through purpose-built technology, unprecedented transparency, and rigorous compliance.
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For many family offices, the risks are no longer theoretical. Governance is informal, reporting delayed, and portfolios are growing more complex by the quarter. Yet many still rely on basic spreadsheets to track billions. According to Copia Wealth, citing KPMG data from 2025, more than 57% of global family offices continue to use general tools like Excel for core financial reporting.
Family offices were once discreet custodians of generational wealth. In 2025, they are fast-moving, capital-rich operators reshaping global investment markets. UBS reports that the average family office now oversees about USD 1.1 billion in assets. With over 3,000 single-family offices worldwide managing more than USD 4.7 trillion, their footprint rivals that of institutional investors (UBS Global Family Office Report, 2025).
Industry research shows that all family offices outsource at least some functions. IT services rank as the third most commonly outsourced area, after legal and tax planning services. At the same time, cybersecurity was the second most common new service that family offices added over the last two years. As security concerns push family offices toward better technology solutions, partnering with an advanced digital wealth platform provider can become the foundation for effective operations across their entire service range.
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For many family offices, the risks are no longer theoretical. Governance is informal, reporting delayed, and portfolios are growing more complex by the quarter. Yet many still rely on basic spreadsheets to track billions. According to Copia Wealth, citing KPMG data from 2025, more than 57% of global family offices continue to use general tools like Excel for core financial reporting.
