Fintech agility meets banking stability. A Saxo perspective on the trends, challenges, and partnership models shaping UK wealth management.

We invited Solve Partners to interview our UK CEO Andrew Bresler against the criteria set out in their recent guide to selecting an operational partner. What follows draws on that exchange: Saxo's perspective on the market, how we are positioned to deliver, and what partnership with us looks like in practice.

What UK wealth managers need right now 

Wealth managers are more informed about what they need from an operational partner than at any point in the past decade. Firms are refining their propositions, asking harder questions, and expecting more from their technology and custody infrastructure. Several forces are driving this.

Consumer Duty has placed a significant burden on firms. The regulation serves the right purpose, but it has substantially increased the volume of day-to-day activity that sits outside of actually delivering advice or investment returns. Much of that operational processing still runs on spreadsheets, manual workflows or legacy technology that doesn’t integrate – approaches that don’t scale. The result is that advisers / investment managers spend too little time on what they do best: providing high-quality, personalised advice that leads to good client outcomes.

At the same time, merger and acquisition activity continues to reshape the sector. As highlighted in our analysis of UK wealth management trends, PE-backed acquirers are completing deals at pace, and firms on both sides of these transactions need infrastructure that can flex. A firm considering acquisition needs a platform that can absorb new books of business quickly. A firm that might be acquired needs a proposition that can be lifted and shifted cleanly, rather than locked into an inflexible arrangement.

Client expectations are also evolving. The great wealth transfer is not just about younger inheritors - it includes spouses and individuals in their sixties who have different needs and engagement preferences. Firms need to serve a broader demographic, and increasingly they recognise the value of offering an execution-only capability alongside their advised proposition. This acts as an incubator: clients who are not yet ready for full advice can engage on their own terms, with the wealth manager there in the background when the relationship is ready to deepen.

The firms we speak with share a common aspiration. They want to spend their time on advice, portfolio construction, and client relationships. They want the operational machinery - custody, dealing, settlement, reporting - to run efficiently in the background without consuming management attention. That is precisely the capability we have built over 30 years.

Where Saxo sits in the market 

The UK custody and platform landscape broadly divides into two camps. There are the incumbents: well-established providers with strong track records and proven resilience but often limited in their capacity for innovation. And there are newer entrants offering modern technology and fresh ideas, but without the scale, balance sheet strength, or operational track record that larger wealth firms require.

Saxo occupies a distinctive position between these two. We have been building and operating financial market infrastructure for over thirty years. Our technology is used globally by some of the largest banks and financial institutions in the world. We are not a concept or a prototype - we have real use cases, high-profile institutional clients, and proven platforms operating at scale across multiple continents.

At the same time, we bring the agility and innovation typically associated with newer market entrants. Our platforms are API-first, with open architecture and comprehensive developer documentation. A wealth manager can take our full front-end advisory portal, integrate via API to build their own client experience, or operate anywhere on the spectrum in between. We have clients running bespoke front-ends on our infrastructure, clients using our model portfolio manager directly, and clients operating white-labelled versions of our platform under their own brand.

This is what we mean when we describe our proposition as fintech agility meeting banking stability. It is not a marketing line. It reflects the structural reality of how we are built and how we serve partners.

The recent acquisition by J. Safra Sarasin of majority stake in Saxo Bank reinforces this positioning. Saxo’s thirty-year heritage in financial technology combines with Safra’s 180-year legacy in private banking. For a wealth manager evaluating long-term partnership options, the stability and permanence signalled by this combination is significant. It also opens the door to complementary capabilities - private banking expertise, asset management products - that could enhance the value proposition available through Saxo in the future.

Our approach to partnership 
We believe the most productive relationships start with a shared understanding of what each party is trying to achieve.  When partnerships break down, it's often because one party holds disproportionate power, leading to a lack of true collaboration, or because expectations were misaligned and not properly set from the outset.

Transparency over promises

We are direct about what we have and what we are building. Our pricing is fully transparent. Where we have gaps in our proposition - and we do - we are upfront about them. We explain what is on the roadmap, where it sits in our development queue, and what the realistic timelines are. We have found that this honesty builds trust far more effectively than overselling and then disappointing.

This discipline extends to implementation. When a manual workaround is needed as an interim solution, we test it rigorously before committing to it. We would rather delay a launch by weeks than go live with something that has not been validated. From a sales perspective, that patience can be uncomfortable. From a partnership perspective, it is the right approach.

A partner that grows with you

One of the most important factors in partnership success is working with a provider that can meet you at your particular stage of growth, and continue to serve you as that changes. Saxo partners with the largest institutional clients and with smaller boutique firms. The flexibility in how we structure the relationship - from off-the-shelf platform to full API integration to white-label - means we can meet a firm where it is today and grow with it over time.

A firm that starts with our adviser portal today can transition to an API-based model as it scales. A firm that launches an execution-only proposition alongside its advised book can use our infrastructure for both. A firm that acquires another business can integrate that book into its existing Saxo structure without starting from scratch. The partnership evolves as the firm evolves.

Continuity of relationship

A persistent frustration in this industry is the handoff between sales and delivery. The person who makes the promises during the selection process disappears once the contract is signed, and the client is left dealing with a new team who may not fully understand what was agreed.

We operate differently. The relationship manager who brings a firm on board stays with that firm throughout the partnership. They remain accountable for the commitments made during the sales process. We have dedicated account management and a prime team for business-as-usual operational support, but the original relationship holder does not disappear. This model exists precisely because we recognise how damaging the alternative is.

C-suite access and strategic engagement

We believe that senior leadership should be accessible to partner firms, not reserved for contract negotiations. Our UK CEO and leadership team engage directly with partners. We host an annual partner conference where firms spend time with Saxo leadership - reviewing the past year, understanding the roadmap, and engaging with strategic priorities. 

Solve’s article on provider evaluation frameworks emphasise the importance of escalation paths and access to senior people. We agree. A relationship where issues can only be raised through operational channels becomes frustrating quickly. Our partners have direct routes to the people who can make decisions and commit resources.

Responding to the evaluation framework

Solve Partners’ selection framework sets out four dimensions for evaluating providers: strategic fit and cultural chemistry; delivery capability and technology; commercial and legal foundations; and relationship management and oversight. Here is how we see ourselves through that lens.

Strategic fit and cultural chemistry

The UK wealth management market is a strategic priority for Saxo. We have structured our global organisation to create dedicated segment ownership, with a global head for the external asset manager segment who works directly with local teams. This means that UK-specific requirements feed into global development priorities rather than being treated as one-off requests.

Culturally, our organisation is built around client outcomes. Every department, every function, every process is mapped to the impact it has on the client experience.

Delivery capability and technology

Our platform architecture is API-first, with open documentation that allows partners and third-party developers to build directly on our infrastructure. Unlike platforms where API capability has been retrofitted, our APIs are the foundational layer - everything we build connects through them.

We maintain a single source of truth for all data, flowing through a unified data architecture. This means that whether a partner accesses information through our portal, their own front-end, or a third-party integration, the data is consistent. From a compliance, risk management, and reporting perspective, this architectural principle is significant.

Our multi-asset capabilities cover equities, ETFs, bonds, mutual funds, FX, options, and more - all accessible through a single account and a unified technology stack. For wealth managers looking to broaden client offerings beyond traditional mutual fund portfolios, this removes the need to integrate with multiple execution venues or custody arrangements.

We also offer flexibility in platform presentation. Our Trader platform provides institutional-grade analytical tools, while our Investor platform offers a cleaner, simpler interface suited to retail-facing propositions. Partners can choose the experience that matches their client base or offer both.

Commercial and legal foundations

We structure commercial terms with the long view in mind. For new propositions where there is no existing book, we work with firms on a commercial basis that reflects the reality of building a client base from zero, with the expectation that terms mature as the relationship grows.

The Saxo balance sheet provides the financial stability that wealth managers rightly demand of their custody and execution partner, that newer market entrants cannot match.

Relationship management and oversight

Day-to-day operational interaction runs through our SaxoConnect partner portal, where firms can raise requests, track progress, and manage client documentation. This creates a transparent audit trail and avoids the ambiguity that comes from managing operational issues through email.

We encourage prospective partners to meet as many people across our organisation as possible during the evaluation process. The consistency of message between the commercial team, the operations team, and the technology team is a signal of organisational alignment. 

Implementation, Migration, and Growing Together

A Rigorous Onboarding Process

Every new partnership is managed as a structured implementation project with a dedicated implementation manager. We invest significant time before go-live to understand not just what a firm needs on day one, but what their 12, 18, and 24-month roadmap looks like. We ask a lot of questions - about their proposition, their growth plans, their client segments - because understanding these ambitions upfront shapes how we configure the solution.

This means that when a firm goes live, the transition is typically smooth.  We also recognise that we may not always be aligned on how a firm plans to implement something. If we believe that there may be a better approach, within our capabilities, we would share this. Equally, if a partner has a certain way of working, we can be flexible and where possible work aligned to their approach. Taking an alternate path may sometimes mean the onboarding takes longer because plans need to be revised, but we consider that time well spent

Managing migrations

We have completed bulk migrations across global markets and in the UK specifically. Each migration is planned carefully, coordinating between the departing custodian, our operations team, and the partner firm. Depending on scale and complexity, migrations may be executed during the working week or over weekends. Trading freezes, asset reconciliation, and booking validation are all managed through established processes.

Thirty years of executing migrations globally means we have encountered most of the things that can go wrong and developed processes to prevent them. Migrations are never risk-free, but the risks are understood and actively managed. 

Supporting growth

For firms growing through acquisition, we support the integration of new books of business into existing structures. Our system architecture accommodates multiple entities, offices, and business models within a single partnership arrangement. A firm running discretionary mandates alongside advisory mandates can manage both through the same infrastructure. A firm that acquires a new business can onboard that entity as a separate structure while maintaining unified oversight.

Critically, firms can grow through our model hierarchy without needing to re-platform. A firm that starts with our adviser portal can transition to API-based integration. A firm that reaches the scale where it wants to hold client money permissions can move to a white-label arrangement. We are built to be a partner across the full lifecycle of a wealth management business, not just at one point in its development.

A partner for the long term

The trends reshaping UK wealth management - consolidation, regulatory intensity, cost pressure, shifting client expectations - are not going away. For boutique investment-led firms, the strategic response is clear: focus on what creates genuine value, and partner with specialists for operational delivery.

Choosing that partner is a decision that will shape a firm’s operational reality for years. We agree with Solve that the evaluation process should be rigorous, focused, and designed to reveal genuine capability rather than polished presentations.

Saxo welcomes that scrutiny. We would rather a prospective partner “check the spark plugs” thoroughly and make an informed decision than sign a contract based on a compelling sales pitch. We have the technology, the track record, the financial stability, and the partnership ethos to support wealth managers through the challenges and opportunities ahead.

We are building something in the UK market that we believe is genuinely needed: a partner that combines institutional-grade infrastructure with the flexibility and innovation that boutique firms require. We invite firms that share that ambition to have a conversation.

Tue Mortensen Deputy and Regional Head of Institutional, Nordic and United Kingdom +45 51595019 tmo@saxobank.com	Reece Baker Senior Sales and Relationship Manager, United Kingdom +44 (20) 71512061 reeb@saxomarkets.com LinkedIn