Wealth management is the service of managing a rich person's or family's money: knowing everything they own, recommending what to buy and sell, and reporting how the investments have done. It is also called wealth advisory or private wealth.
The person who does this is the adviser. The adviser can be one of three kinds. A private banker serves rich clients at a bank. An independent adviser is paid by the client and acts for the client, not for a bank. A family office is a private firm that manages the money of one rich family. In India, an adviser who charges a fee for advice must be registered with SEBI. The page on investment advice regulation explains what counts as advice.
Take, for example, a founder in Bengaluru who has just sold her start-up. She now owns shares in several companies, money in three banks, units in a dozen mutual funds, a stake in a private fund and two flats. She has no time to track all of it.
First, an adviser finds her. A wealth prospecting platform has noticed the sale of her company, and alerts private bankers that she may need an adviser.
Second, the adviser finds out what she owns. Wealth aggregation software brings her shares, funds, private stake and flats into one picture. If she sets up her own family office, its family office accounting system records every rupee that comes in or goes out.
Third, the adviser recommends what to buy. The adviser works on a wealth management platform, which shows her holdings and suggests changes. The adviser may put part of her money in portfolio management services (PMS), where a manager invests it for her. Her mutual funds may have been sold to her by a distributor, who tracks them on mutual fund distributor software.
Fourth, the trades are placed. A wealth order management system takes each decision to the broker.
Fifth, the adviser reports how her investments have done, through the platform's client portal.
More and more, investors with far less money get similar help from an app.