Paris / Frankfurt am Main, March 2, 2026.
Strategy alone is no longer enough. Supervisory authorities are demanding evidence. Clients expect systems that simply work. And the USD 90.5 trillion in global HNWI wealth at stake make the cost of inaction very real.
Harvest and fincite today released the WealthTech Radar 2026, their fourth annual report on the trends reshaping European wealth management. The message is clear: the industry has moved beyond the era of pilots and proof-of-concepts. Five implementation priorities will now determine who leads and who falls behind.
The five priorities:
Cloud resilience – measured by verifiable recoverability, exit readiness, and control over service providers, not by policy documents.
Asset tokenization – where settlement speed and collateral mobility create real, measurable value.
Direct indexing – selectively deployed where economic viability truly aligns with client preferences.
Advisor-ready wealth aggregation – the prerequisite for increasing wallet share in the era of wealth transfer.
AI at scale – but only on the basis of a clean, governance-compliant wealth data foundation with integrated workflows.
Cloud sovereignty is now required to demonstrate proof
The report’s special focus examines the sovereignty debate in depth: what matters in 2026 is not the jurisdiction in which your data is stored, but whether you can demonstrably restore critical workloads within defined RTO/RPO windows. The ECB has made its position clear. Responsible managers must treat cloud resilience as a revenue issue — not as an IT checklist.
Tokenization: From the pilot narrative to production readiness
The era of tokenization pilots is over. The Radar tracks institutional programs that have moved into production: cash and settlement mechanisms, tokenized bonds and funds, as well as collateral mobility models. The short-term value lies in faster settlement and more flexible collateral — provided that custody, interoperability, and governance are built in from day one.
Direct Indexing: Technically ready, economically selective
Direct indexing is technically mature. However, broad scaling in the retail segment is not realistic in Europe in 2026. Fractional share regulation, tax asymmetries, and best execution requirements set clear limits. The opportunity is real — where mandates are large enough, client preferences justify the service offering, and the overall cost equation makes sense.
Wealth Aggregation: The bottleneck that became a growth lever
Next-generation clients expect a comprehensive, actionable overview of all their assets. Most relationship managers still lack the right tools to provide this. Banks that close this gap — and truly integrate aggregation into the advisor’s daily workflow — secure and increase their wallet share: before the wealth transfer, during it, and afterwards.
AI in Wealth Management: Results, not “pilotitis.”
AI is becoming a baseline expectation. Yet 71% of wealth management executives describe digital-first capabilities as critical for client retention, while only around half offer AI-supported client profiling. The report maps the operational prerequisites that separate a proof of concept from real frontline results: data layer quality, model governance, and workflow integration. In exactly that order.
Written by those who live it every day.
The WealthTech Radar is not a single-company perspective. Each trend chapter is co-authored with an independent domain expert — practitioners and executives who work on these topics every day. The 2026 edition brings together:
• Jerome Evans, CEO, firstcolo — Cloud & Geopolitical Tensions (Special Topic)
• Simon Seiter, Managing Director & CFO/CPO, AllUnity — Asset Tokenization
• Alexander Sperlich, Managing Director DACH & Head of Strategic Business Development EMEA, Morningstar — Direct Indexing
• David Niedzielski, Managing Director, Sprengnetter Group — Real Estate
• Dr. Til Rochow, CPO & Co-Founder, Upvest — Digital Wealth Backend
• Susanne Krehl, Chief Growth Officer, wealthAPI — Wealth Aggregation
• Leyla Kunimoto, Founder, Accredited Investor Insights — Private Equity / Venture Capital
• Delphine Asseraf, Deputy CEO, Harvest — AI in Wealth Management
• Dr. Alexander Bechtel, Global Head of Digital Products, DWS — Crypto Assets
• Pablo Nobre dos Reis, Digital Products Analyst, DWS — Crypto Assets
• Dr. Oliver Pfeil, CEO, ÖKOWORLD AG — ESG Constraints
• Nicola Alvaro, Head of Wealth Services & Distribution, Allianz Life Luxembourg S.A. — Digital Estate Planning
Quotes – What the authors say
Artificial intelligence does not replace people — it enhances their decision-making capabilities.
Clients move fast — wealth management solutions must connect even faster.
