Private Client Resources says a run of client signups and developments bolster its confident in significantly increasing aggregate assets in the coming months.

Private Client Resources, the US-headquartered service provider to the wealth management sector, has reiterated its prediction that is likely to cover around $500 billion in aggregated assets by early next year, up from $250 billion, pointing to trends in private banking and UHNW client behavior as forces at work.

The firm and its partners have, since launch, signed and collaborated with 28 end‐client engagements. AltaReturn, Dynamo, HWA International, Risclarity, Ledgex, Empire Software, and InvestCloud are some of the investment management technology companies working with PCR. It said in a statement that 13 technology providers have signed up with PCR in the past six months – another nine partnerships are due to be “announced shortly”.

“Our business growth is driven primarily by institutional wealth managers (private banks, trusts, etc.) and adoption of our aggregation-as-a-service (AAAS) by a wide range of technology and application providers,” the firm told this publication recently when asked for more details. PCR was founded in 2000.

“Private banks have returned to held away aggregation as a strategy to elevate their advisory status with over 60 per cent of new business in this category. The institutionalization of multi-family-offices are driving decisions that focus on sustainable infrastructures with data management at its core,” it said. “The traditional RIA space and the custodians that support them are trying to figure out ultra-high net worth clients and serve next generation clients and reduce the cost of providing advice.”

(“Held away aggregation” means assets/investment owned by the client, but not sold to them by their bank or custody by them. With UHNW individuals this typically means private placements, such as hedge funds private equity and real estate. The banks typically only see a wire of money going out the door, with little or no knowledge of where it went or why, PCR explained. Held away aggregation is when the private bank uses a service like PCR, who get that data from the investor or the fund, pairs it off against the wire (i.e. the cash offset) and then books it all in a single ledger.)

Asked where the industry faces challenges, PCR said privacy, globalization and enterprise integration are areas where the wealth industry needs to improve. There is a need for technologies to ensure anonymization (not encryption), irrefutable consent for how an individual’s data is used, information telemetry technology to make sure the enterprise can satisfy privacy regulation and data sharing, such as the European Union’s GDPR data protection regime, it said.

“The rest of the aggregation space needs to get serious about global privacy regulation, they cannot reply solely upon loosely defined agreements, promises to implement best practices or large cyber insurance policies,” the firm said. 

PCR said its new partners collectively represent $512 billion in potential serviceable assets under management, spanning a collection of over 300 new clients. The PCR partner program will expand the footprint of PCR TotalWealthStream, and promulgate “PCR Inside” model to more enterprises around the world.