Why Mobile Will Define the Future of Wealth Management

For Dutch private banks, wealth managers and independent advisers, this means a client base that’s already starting to turn over, and a new generation of inheritors who won’t automatically stay loyal to their parents’ adviser.

That shift in client expectations was the focus of a recent Future of Wealth Management event we hosted alongside our partners Braze, where we looked at how firms can build connected, digital-first experiences fit for the next generation of investors. 

The conclusions apply just as much in Amsterdam or Rotterdam as they do in London or New York: the firms that win the next decade of wealth management will be the ones with the best experience.

Why performance alone won’t keep Dutch clients anymore

For most of the industry’s history, competitive advantage came down to three things: investment performance, the strength of the adviser relationship, and product range. All three still matter, but none of them are enough on their own anymore.

Dutch consumers already bank, shop and travel through apps built by some of the most digitally sophisticated companies in Europe, and they judge every other service against that same bar, wealth management included. An adviser relationship that depends on annual meetings and PDF statements looks increasingly out of step with a client base used to instant, mobile-first, personalised experiences everywhere else in their financial lives.

The cost of getting this wrong is real and immediate. Industry research shows that around 81% of people who inherit wealth plan to switch providers within a year of receiving it. In a market where relationships with a private bank or wealth managers can span decades, the Great Wealth Transfer represents a genuine reset point for client loyalty — arguably the biggest one the Dutch wealth industry has faced.

From customer data to customer understanding

Dutch financial institutions are not short of data. Most are already collecting more of it than they know what to do with; transaction histories, product usage, digital engagement patterns.

The real opportunity lies in turning that data into understanding. Behavioural data becomes far more powerful when it’s combined with zero-party data: information clients choose to share directly about their goals, life events, and how and when they want to be contacted. Someone who has just told their bank they’re expecting a windfall, planning for retirement, or supporting a child through university is giving a far clearer signal than any transaction history alone ever could.

Put those two data types together, and firms stop managing segments and start understanding individuals. That’s what allows genuinely proactive engagement; the right guidance, the right education, at the right moment in someone’s life, rather than generic, reactive communication sent to everyone at once.

Why AI changes the personalisation equation

Personalisation has been on every financial services roadmap for years. What’s changed is that AI has made it genuinely achievable at scale, rather than a slide in a strategy deck.

Instead of sorting clients into a handful of fixed segments and static journeys, AI lets firms decide the right message, channel and moment for each individual, in real time. It doesn’t replace the adviser, but it gives advisers and organisations the ability to be relevant and timely for thousands of clients simultaneously, something that was practically impossible to do by hand.

The result, done well, is engagement that finally feels less like marketing and more like genuine advice.

Bringing it together: strategy, data, AI and design as one system

The clearest theme to come out of the event was integration. The firms best placed to lead the next era of wealth management are the ones connecting customer data, AI and mobile experience design into one continuous journey, rather than treating them as separate initiatives owned by separate teams.

That’s a strategic and organisational challenge as much as a technical one, and it requires clarity on digital strategy, strong customer experience design, and platforms built to keep improving based on real client behaviour.

This is exactly the combination Apadmi and Braze bring to financial services clients. Apadmi designs, builds and optimises the digital products that meet investor expectations, while Braze gives firms the ability to activate customer data and orchestrate personalised, AI-driven engagement across every channel a client uses.

Together, we help wealth management firms move past one-off digital projects and build connected experiences that strengthen client relationships, improve retention, and support long-term growth — exactly the kind of experience the next generation of Dutch investors will expect as standard.

As the Great Wealth Transfer approaches across the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, one conclusion is hard to avoid: the wealth managers who thrive will be the ones who build the best experience, for every client, every day.