As the industry draws a line under 2025, it would be easy to characterise the year through its loudest narratives: the backlash against ESG, the unrelenting enthusiasm for AI, or repeated claims that wealth advice is on the verge of reinvention. Yet, as Kidbrooke has previously argued in its Trends research, the most consequential developments across wealth management and investment markets tend to be structural rather than theatrical.
WealthTech company Kidbrooke recently explored the lessons learned from 2025 and what to expect in wealth management in 2026.
Across ESG and WealthTech, 2025 was defined less by innovation and more by correction, it said. Regulators paused to reassess frameworks that had grown unwieldy. Financial institutions moved from pilots and proofs of concept toward execution. At the same time, technology continued its quiet transition from a competitive differentiator into core financial infrastructure. Looking back, and ahead into 2026, these shifts reveal a market that is becoming more disciplined, more selective, and more focused on credibility.
One of the clearest examples of this recalibration is ESG. Rather than pushing the sustainability agenda further outward, regulators and market participants spent much of 2025 questioning whether existing approaches were delivering clarity or simply adding complexity. Years of rapid rulemaking had produced overlapping disclosures, inconsistent interpretations, and a growing risk that ESG would be reduced to a compliance exercise or marketing shorthand, Kidbrooke explained.
In Europe, this reassessment was explicit. Reviews of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation acknowledged that sustainability information had become difficult for investors to interpret and, in some cases, vulnerable to greenwashing. The direction of travel is now toward clearer product categorisation, stronger consumer protections, and disclosures designed to support real investment decisions rather than box-ticking. Similar thinking underpins the Omnibus discussions around the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, where higher thresholds and simplified requirements reflect a growing emphasis on proportionality. The underlying message is consistent: credibility matters more than volume.
This change has important implications for financial institutions. Shorter and more focused disclosures may reduce noise, but they also raise expectations around data quality, governance, and explainability.
Alongside this regulatory shift, investor-centric communication is becoming unavoidable. Research across the market, including Kidbrooke’s own analysis, shows that many investors still struggle to access or compare ESG information in a meaningful way. Exclusions remain unclear, benchmarks are often absent, and methodologies are poorly explained.
Technology plays a decisive role here. While AI dominated headlines in 2025, the more meaningful progress in WealthTech happened behind the scenes. Firms invested in data aggregation, analytics, and automation, laying the foundations for advice that can scale across channels and client segments. Rather than replacing advisers, technology is absorbing complexity and enabling guidance that reflects evolving client context.
Looking ahead to 2026, the common thread across ESG and WealthTech is restraint. Regulators are simplifying rather than expanding. Institutions are building durable platforms rather than chasing novelty. Technology is being judged less on ambition and more on whether it enables clear, compliant, and trustworthy outcomes. In this environment, long-term trust will belong to firms that quietly get the data, analytics, and communication right.
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