What Wealth Management Firms Need From Identity in 2026
Wealth management has always operated in a high-trust environment. Advisors manage complex financial lives, multi-generational relationships, and decisions that carry real consequences. Identity verification, client to client, has never been optional. It has been, and will forever, be absolutely critical.
What has changed is how clearly firms must now demonstrate that identity was verified, applied consistently, and documented across every meaningful client action.
With the expansion of KYC & AML practices and procedures now being required for firms with $100M in AUM or greater, this has had a domino effect across wealth management as a whole. Identity verification processes have rapidly shifted from a "nice to have" feature, to an absolute-cornerstone of any wealth management firm.
This is not a shift in values. It is a shift in execution.
The real exposure is inconsistency, not individual events
Most RIAs already perform identity checks. The risk emerges when those checks vary depending on the advisor, the workflow, or the account type.
Onboarding may be thorough, while beneficiary changes rely on email confirmation. Transfers may require manual review, while spousal consents arrive as unsigned PDFs. Trusts, estates, and household accounts often fragment identity across systems, documents, and teams.
In many firms, this fragmentation is compounded by tool sprawl. Different vendors support different workflows. Advisors and operations teams toggle between systems. Clients are asked to repeat steps they thought they already completed. What begins as an attempt to strengthen compliance often turns into a slower, more confusing experience for everyone involved.
Under heightened regulatory scrutiny, these inconsistencies become material. Gaps in documentation, unclear authorization trails, and mismatched client records introduce audit risk, operational drag, and reputational exposure. They also create measurable business impact. According to the Fenergo 2025 Financial Crime Industry Trends Report, 70% of firms report losing clients due to clunky customer experiences, and onboarding abandonment has risen to nearly 10% year over year.
The challenge for wealth management firms is not adding more tools. It is establishing a single, defensible identity standard that applies everywhere it needs to, without creating internal friction or driving clients away.
Why identity is becoming foundational infrastructure
Leading firms are beginning to treat identity less as a point-in-time task and more as shared infrastructure.
That means verifying a client once at onboarding, then relying on that verified identity across future actions. It means maintaining continuity across trusts, estates, and household relationships. It means being able to show, after the fact, who approved what, when, and based on which identity evidence.
When identity functions this way, compliance becomes more predictable. Advisors spend less time re-collecting documents. Operations teams spend less time resolving exceptions. Compliance teams gain confidence that standards are applied consistently, not selectively.
This is the direction regulators, custodians, and allocators are signaling toward, and it is where wealth management workflows are headed.
What modern identity support looks like for RIAs
For wealth management firms, modern identity support must do more than check a box.
It must verify the real person behind an account during onboarding, then carry that verified identity forward across high-risk actions like transfers, disbursements, beneficiary updates, and account changes. It must handle complex client structures, including trusts, estates, and multi-account households, without fragmenting records or introducing rework.
Just as important, it must produce clear, time-stamped, tamper-evident records that stand up during audits, examinations, and allocator due diligence. Identity evidence should be easy to retrieve, easy to explain, and consistent across the firm.
Proof delivers this by providing a standardized identity layer purpose-built for high-trust financial workflows. With Identify, RIAs can verify clients once, apply that identity consistently across the client lifecycle, and maintain audit-ready records without slowing advisors or complicating the client experience.
From verified identity to defensible authorization
Once identity is standardized, authorization becomes clearer and easier to defend.
High-risk actions are no longer approved implicitly or documented informally. Transfers, consents, and approvals can be tied directly back to a verified individual, with evidence that shows who authorized the action and when.
For clients, this does not mean more hoops. It means fewer repeated requests and less confusion. When identity is already established and applied consistently, clients are not asked to re-submit documents or re-verify themselves for every new action. The experience feels seamless, even as the controls behind the scenes become stronger.
This connection between identity and authorization reduces ambiguity during audits and internal reviews. It also allows firms to modernize workflows without increasing compliance risk, because approvals are anchored to verified identity rather than process memory.
Building for the next phase of wealth management
Regulatory expectations will continue to evolve, but the direction is clear. Wealth management firms will be expected to prove that identity controls are consistent, documented, and applied across every meaningful client interaction.
Firms that invest now in identity infrastructure will be better positioned to scale, adapt, and protect both their clients and their reputation. They will spend less time reacting to gaps and more time operating with confidence.
Proof helps wealth management teams meet higher standards without adding friction, giving advisors the flexibility they need and compliance teams the clarity they expect.
.png)
.jpg)
