How Eton Solutions Offers Optimised Operational Technology to Suit All Levels of Family Offices

US-headquartered family office solutions specialist Eton Solutions is making a splash in Asia and the Middle East this year, having opened a new international HQ in Singapore in February and following up with the more recent opening of their Dubai office to cover the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East and Africa. Eton Solutions is working hard to promote the Family Office as a concept, but more specifically to help family founders and existing SFOs and MFOs deliver their family members and end clients fit-for-purpose operations and reporting solutions that are at the forefront technologically and in terms of regulatory compliance. Bryan Henning, SVP and Head of International, Eton Solutions, delivered another informative and educational presentation at the Hubbis Wealth Solutions Forum in Dubai on August 30, highlighting their mission and ambition with clients either indigenous to the Middle East, or from overseas and thinking of setting up an SFO in the UAE, an appealing jurisdiction. Bryan explained in brief about the firm’s family office offerings, and how the firm works closely with the wealth management industry and professionals as well as fiduciary services firms around the world.

By way of background, Bryan first explained that when their founder was in the process of creating his own Multi-Family Office some 13-plus years ago, he soon found that he needed several different systems to run it properly.

That led him to realise he had an opportunity to seize, and over the next several years, he and the team built their fully integrated ERP system for family offices. This was at first specifically for the founder's own MFO (which now runs some USD6 billion in AUM), but later and once tried and tested in-house, the AtlasFive platform was spun out into Eton Solutions as a separate entity from where it was rolled out commercially to third-party Single and Multi-Family Offices, Trusts and Institutions (on a white-labelled basis) and that business has today blossomed globally.

Delivering excellence for the larger family offices

The highly sophisticated Eton Solutions ERP platform AtlasFive, is a cloud native SaaS system, has been sold extensively to family offices in North America and Internationally, typically with USD1 billion of AUM and above. Bryan told guests that as a result, Eton Solutions today services 652 families with USD737 billion being administered on their platform.

In addition, they process USD58 billion annually in capital calls and bill payments on their platform. Eton Solutions has a global headcount of over 350 and they have invested over USD40 million in product development over the last three years alone.

Every family office has similar needs

Bryan explained that Eton Solutions knows from extensive experience that while each very wealthy family is different and almost always complex, their Family Office operations, wherever they might be located, should always be as efficient, and straightforward as possible, adopting the best practices and best technologies from the world over. And that, Bryan told delegates, is exactly what Eton Solutions strives to advise on and deliver.

Bryan observed that most wealthy families considering establishing a family office have similar pain points in terms of Corporate Governance, Regulatory Compliance, Staff Recruitment and Retention, Manual Data Consolidations, Investment Reporting, General Ledger Accounting and so forth.

Your one-stop administrative solution

“From our combined worldwide knowledge and from our direct experience in Asia and now the UAE, we know that clients expressed a great need for a single view of their entities, which involves aggregated data across multiple banks and custodians, and the right levels of security infrastructure and IT security,” he elaborated. “And you would be amazed at how many very sophisticated individuals we have dealt with who have sold their businesses for vast sums where they were using world class technology solutions, but when they set up their Family Offices defer to using old technology and manual excel based solutions with little or no security or disaster recovery plans for their own information.”

Taking the stress out of the operations

Bryan explained that Eton Solutions delivers a platform that enables clients to automate and essentially not worry about their middle-office and back-office operations. The platform provides state-of-the-art cybersecurity, with secure encrypted communications behind a firewall and provides for good corporate governance and regulatory compliance.

“All Eton’s family office systems are cloud native. The way I explain ‘cloud native’ is to imagine Microsoft Azure as a bank, protecting very valuable items, and within that, our clients’ data is within a private lock box in a vault that’s in the bank, which results in the highest level of data security and privacy for those clients,” he stated.

All these and many other features allow their clients to focus their investment, finance and client facing staff on the value-added aspects of wealth protection and wealth creation with their internal investment advisory experts or with their external advisory partners and not spend precious resources on running their middle and back-office functions.

AFO - Eton’s solution for smaller and mid-sized family offices

And that led him to the democratisation of the Eton Solutions AtlasFive platform, in the form of their 2023 launch of what is essentially a more entry-level, but still very comprehensive, platform and services solution called the Administrative Family Office (AFO).

This is specifically targeted towards ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) and smaller Family Offices with USD50 million in AUM and upwards, with several clients already using it across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Your virtual family office administrator

Bryan then offered delegates more detail on the Administrative Family Office solution, known as AFO. It is essentially a virtual family office, he explained, which is fully mobile and deliverable through an app at any time and in any place.

AFO essentially takes 80% of the work of a typical family office and automates it all, allowing the principals and managers to spend their time on value-added objectives such as protecting and creating wealth, and also on their big picture goals such as ensuring multi-generational transfer of wealth can happen smoothly and with transparency.

Bryan told guests that the AFO delivers a remarkably comprehensive portfolio of solutions, including investment performance reporting, accounting, CRM, document management and a full-cycle invoice payment module specialised to handle capital calls for Private Equity investments as well. They have over 700 daily data feeds coming in from custodians globally. They reconcile the investment reporting and accounting reporting, on a T+1 basis daily, not at the end of the month, or 10 days after the month or 15 days or at the quarterly closes, but daily.

“If information is power, then timely information is even more powerful,” he added. “Such is the strength of our digitised platform.”

Three levels of access

AFO is available in three different levels: the AFO, AFO Power, and the AFO Professional. Each level is tailored to the specific needs and expectations of the client. Bryan then talked delegates through their mobile app to demonstrate just how comprehensive the AFO offering is at solving so many challenges and needs for family office clients.

Bryan also shared “Our expansion into the UAE is a testament to our commitment to the Middle East region. This new office will allow us to better serve our existing clients and forge new partnerships in this dynamic market. The UAE office is equidistant between Asia and Europe and serves as a connection to key wealth centres. It will act as a hub to serve Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (GCC), Indian sub-continent, Africa, Turkey and parts of Central Asia. We are excited about the opportunities this expansion presents.

The UAE is a strategic region for our global growth strategy going forward, our solutions cater for a broad range of needs for emerging and existing Family Offices. The launch of our Administrative Family Office (AFO) solution is a game-changer for the industry, enabling family offices to streamline their operations and achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and control. We are dedicated to providing our clients with the best possible service, and this expansion will enable us to deliver our innovative solutions more effectively to clients in the Middle East."

In line with this expansion, Eton Solutions is also pleased to announce the appointment of Chetan Chaudhari as Vice President of Sales for the Middle East & India. Based in the new UAE office in Dubai, Chetan will play a pivotal role in strengthening the company's presence in the region and driving its growth strategy.

For further reading on Eton Solutions, please see these 2023 Hubbis articles

Optimising Family Office Formation and Operations from the Rapidly Evolving UAE Wealth Market

Eton Solutions Launches its ‘Revolutionary’ Administrative Family Office

Want to get involved in future events? Save the date of our Hubbis Wealth Solutions Forum – Dubai 2024, which takes place on Wednesday 11th September.

You may also wish to save the date of our other Wealth Solutions Forums taking place in 2024 –

• The Hubbis HNW Insurance Summit – Dubai which takes place on Wednesday 1st May 2024.
• The Hubbis Wealth Solutions Forum – Singapore which takes place on Wednesday 5th June 2024.
• The Hubbis HNW Insurance Summit – Singapore which takes place on Wednesday 4th September 2024.
• The Hubbis Wealth Solutions Forum – Hong Kong which takes place on Wednesday 23rd October 2024.

Want to find out more about how you can drive your connectivity within the wealth management industry in Asia and the Middle East? Get in touch at [email protected] to find out our Partnership Opportunities for 2024