WealthTech buying: three red flags to avoid

January 29, 2026

Kidbrooke has warned wealth managers not to be dazzled by “features and pricing” when selecting analytics technology, arguing that the most expensive mistakes tend to come from deeper structural limitations that only show up after implementation.

In a post aimed at firms reviewing their WealthTech stack, the company said seemingly attractive platforms can create long-term delivery delays, limit innovation and heighten regulatory exposure.

The first red flag highlighted is narrow-scope analytics. Kidbrooke said some solutions can appear polished and deliver fast value for a small set of use cases, such as portfolio forecasting, basic risk profiling, or standardised onboarding journeys. The issue, it argued, is what happens when a business needs to expand the number of journeys it supports, respond to changing customer expectations, or adapt to shifting regulatory requirements. Where the “underlying analytics engine” is limited, firms can quickly hit operational constraints and end up layering more technology on top to compensate.

That typically forces organisations into a cycle of adding suppliers, building integrations and dealing with fragmented experiences, according to Kidbrooke.

The second issue is opaque or expensive customisation, which Kidbrooke described as a common “innovation bottleneck”. It said some vendors promise flexibility, but then require lengthy and costly vendor-led development even for relatively small changes, such as adjusting a model or refining a user interface. Kidbrooke suggested this can be exacerbated when work is outsourced to teams that do not fully understand the wealth domain, leading to delays, budget overruns and outputs that miss business needs.

Kidbrooke encouraged buyers to test whether their internal teams can collaborate directly with vendor engineers, and whether changes follow a transparent process with predictable costs. It also suggested assessing whether a platform is genuinely extensible without requiring rebuilds.

The third red flag is a lack of domain expertise, which Kidbrooke framed as “tech without context”. It said some providers are strong at general-purpose analytics but struggle with the realities of financial services delivery, including compliance expectations, investment logic and the behavioural factors that influence client decisions. The company warned that this gap can translate into misaligned solutions, higher regulatory risk, and extensive rework.

Kidbrooke’s central message is that wealth management is entering a period of accelerated change, where client expectations are rising, margins are under pressure and compliance obligations are becoming more complex. In that environment, it said, the wrong analytics decision can leave firms carrying technical debt and missed opportunities for years.

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