Tony Webb, CEO at Quai Digital, shares a pragmatic take on why so many core workflows remain stuck—and what wealth firms can do about it.
Ten years on from pension freedoms, five years into a wave of digitisation, and firmly into the cloud-native era, yet manual processes continue to shape the day-to-day experience of far too many wealth management firms.
I’m not talking about edge cases or legacy firms clinging to paper files. I’m talking about the core workflows that underpin advice businesses, DFMs, and platform providers alike: onboarding new clients, managing drawdown, transferring assets, keeping track of commercial property in SIPPs. Tasks that should feel simple and still don’t.
It’s not through lack of will. Most firms I speak to recognise the problem. Many have invested heavily in CRM upgrades, portals, and integrations. But the reality is that underneath those interfaces, core processes are often still disconnected, heavily manual, or reliant on human workarounds. And it’s quietly costing the sector time, talent, and trust.
Progress at the edges, friction at the centre
Digital front ends have improved, and adviser-client communications are far slicker than they were even five years ago. But the moment you lift the lid; the cracks are obvious.
Onboarding often requires the same client information to be entered into three or four systems. Transfers can take weeks because a signed letter of authority still needs to be physically processed. Commercial property SIPPs are tracked in spreadsheets and inboxes. Drawdown payments rely on forms and phone calls.
None of this should feel normal in 2025, yet it’s still widespread.
What worries me is not just the inefficiency, but what it signals. If clients experience friction when trying to access their own money or have to chase for updates on what should be routine actions, it damages confidence. Not just in the platform or provider, but in the wider system of advice and investment.
Why haven’t these problems been fixed?
Inertia is often blamed, but I don’t think that’s fair. The truth is more complex.
Some firms fear disruption. Replacing core systems is expensive, risky, and time-consuming, especially when the business is already operating at full capacity. Others are locked into legacy arrangements that don’t make modular upgrades easy. And in many cases, it’s not always clear where to start: the problems are so tightly woven into operations that pulling one thread feels like it might unravel the whole thing.
What’s often missing is a way to make change feel manageable, to improve what matters, without having to rip everything out.
Modularity isn’t just a tech term
One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen, and welcome, is a growing openness to modularity. Not as a buzzword, but as a mindset. Firms want to be able to fix specific problems in their infrastructure, without being forced to take on more than they need. They want to be able to start small, and scale change on their terms.
It’s no coincidence that the firms who are moving fastest are often those who’ve taken a modular approach. Whether that’s outsourcing SIPP admin, rebuilding a specific part of the client journey, or switching to a cloud-native platform in stages.
When the industry talks about digitisation, we tend to focus on the big picture. But it’s these day-to-day frictions, the ones that seem minor, yet repeat endlessly, that often shape the client experience, and limit what advice firms can deliver.
Time to get unstuck
There’s no quick fix. But there is a clear opportunity for wealth firms and technology providers to work more pragmatically, and to acknowledge that progress doesn’t have to mean disruption.
What if improving one process at a time was enough? What if the infrastructure really did fit around the business, not the other way round?
Progress doesn’t have to be painful. But standing still definitely is.
You don’t need to rebuild everything. Just start somewhere.
We help wealth firms modernise core operations—without the pain of full replacement. See how firms like yours are making change manageable with Quai.
