Manage Your Clients’ Discretionary Investment Portfolios At A Glance
A 2022 Kitces study found that 70% of US-based financial advisors’ time is spent away from clients and prospects, as they’re bogged down in back- and middle-office tasks. That means they’re spending less than a fifth of their time consulting with their existing clients or engaging with new prospects. Digital technology is helping them to get that time back.
In 2024 wealth management giant Morgan Stanley partnered with artificial intelligence (AI) pioneers OpenAI, aiming to use AI’s scale and speed to enhance advisor productivity, improve client interactions, and drive operational efficiencies.
Cutting-edge trading platforms like Mesh.trade are also giving investors and advisors time back in their day. A registered financial services provider, Mesh offers professional investors such as wealth managers, independent financial advisors, family offices and other seasoned investors, a secure, easy-to-use platform, that simplifies the complexities and reduces the time and costs associated with participating in the capital markets – all safely within required regulatory frameworks.
“We make the capital markets easy to access, simple to use and transparent,” says Mesh co-founder Connie Bloem. “Our platform compresses the complex, sometimes disconnected processes of capital markets into one elegant flow, removing your admin burden and enabling you to manage your clients’ assets at a glance. We also take the pain out of KYC and regulatory compliance, simplifying the workflows and processes needed to trade and manage the alternative assets that form part of your clients’ model portfolios.”
This is achieved through tokenisation, which involves creating a digital representation of a real-world asset (i.e. bonds, shares or funds), on the blockchain. This innovation enables the fractional ownership of assets and unlocks access to traditionally illiquid or high-value investments.
“The global momentum for tokenised assets is growing exponentially, with some of the largest institutions in the world entering the market. Advisors who fail to act by adding the crypto asset category to their licenses, risk falling behind as their competitors seize these opportunities first,” says Bloem.
Discover a new world of alternative assets
But winning on efficiency is only half the battle. Technology is also making it easier than ever for professional investors to discover a range of quality alternative assets, and to allocate these to clients based on a defined model portfolio mandate – quicker, easier and more cost-effectively than ever before.
“Professional investors are looking for more choice when it comes to quality alternative financial assets,” says Rob Mackay, Mesh’s Investor Manager Lead. “These are sophisticated investors who have direct control over their clients’ investment choices – but they’re stuck in traditional capital markets that are inaccessible and inflexible.”
With its multi-sided digital capital markets platform, Mesh solves that problem by offering institution-grade end-to-end financial market infrastructure on the blockchain. The result is a new ecosystem of alternative assets, ranging from tokenised Corporate Bond notes to Actively Managed Certificates (AMCs), as well as a range of Stablecoins (which saw $8.5 trillion in global transactions in Q2/2024 – double the volumes of Visa’s network).
“As a professional investor working to a defined model portfolio mandate, you’ll have an allocation earmarked for private capital or alternative asset classes,” says Mackay. “And while a handful of professional investors are able to source some interesting opportunities on their own, many wealth managers are bound by a set of very archaic rules and constrained by the lack of flexibility of existing platforms and LISPS, which are unable to list alternative asset classes, such as ETFs , Hedge Funds and Private Credit amongst others. They – and their clients – need a trusted platform where they can find a good high-quality range of alternative, unique and interesting private capital assets which they can’t access anywhere else. The Mesh Marketplace allows these professional investors to access untapped opportunities – and to be there first.”
Flexibility in the secondary market
Digital technology is also bringing unparalleled levels of flexibility and liquidity to the investment space – and again, it’s expanding the range of choices available to investors.
“The secondary market is a game-changer here,” says Mackay. “As a wealth manager or financial planner, when you’re offered something in the private equity space it generally comes with, say, a 10-year lock-in period. But what if your client wants to liquidate that asset in three or four years’ time? Either they cannot liquidate or they have to sell at a very unfavourable price, which makes it a difficult proposition for an advisor to provide to their clients. By creating a secondary market, Mesh has introduced liquidity to private equity and other investments that tend to require lengthy time horizons. You’re no longer stuck with the asset throughout its lifecycle.”
For professional investors, that flexibility – combined with time-saving efficiency – is more than a glimpse into the future of financial markets. It’s a real solution to the challenges they face in achieving growth for their clients today.
Click here to find more investment management resources at www.mesh.trade.
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