Private wealth management online – is it possible? By Romesh Atapattu

While wealth management is also evolving due to manifold driving forces, one thing remains constant: the focus on the client. How can you build trust and protect your clients’ confidential information, while taking advantage of the technology?

The next episode of “under CTRL”, our podcast providing industry best practices for security-conscious companies, revolves around these questions and more. Our special guest, Romesh Atapattu, CEO of a boutique wealth management bank in Dubai called Patronus, has a lot to offer – anecdotes, learnings and predictions about an industry that has also been deeply affected by digitalization and COVID-19.

Managing clients’ assets via a web-based interface, validating information with digital signatures and Zoom meetings with clients have become normal nowadays. From the perspective of our ingrained digital habits, it is hard to imagine those times when almost everything was done in an analog way. By recalling some real stories, Romesh helps us envision wealth management and its risks in a time when email was at the center of our online universe.

Romesh and his team wanted to center their wealth management offering around personal relationships and trust. Having left behind the “one-size-fits-all” mentality, they are maintaining a very close relationship with their clients and keep looking for a technology which protects client information with end-to-end-security.

This has also been a key learning derived from the digital push due to Covid-19: building trustworthy relationships is no longer a matter of personal communication. Companies are forced to demonstrate trust by using secure technologies and compliance measures to safeguard the online privacy of their clients.

We were also interested in getting some first-hand insights about data regulations in Dubai. In a world where the GDPR sets the tone for countries around the globe in terms of data protection law, Romesh can truly benefit from using privacy-focused services like Tresorit. And the provision of an audit trail as part of Tresorit’s service also represents an immense value for their operation. By being able to see who is accessing the information and how it is used, they are always on the safe side – no matter if regulators or clients are examining their compliance.

Finally, the wealth management guru also has some key takeaways concluded from 20 years of experience for those just entering the industry.

Listen to episode 3 on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or subscribe to our RSS feed to learn more and tell us what you think.