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AI Wealth Startup Expands, Adds Ex-UBS, ING Chief Executive As Advisor

Tom Burroughes Group Editor 14 October 2024

AI Wealth Startup Expands, Adds Ex-UBS, ING Chief Executive As Advisor

Harnessing AI, the wealth platform – originally established in the US – has achieved regulatory clearance in Singapore and is embarking on international growth, including developing a "wealth-as-a-service" offering.

The former chief executive of UBS and Dutch bank ING, Ralph Hamers (pictured), has become an external advisor of Arta Finance, the AI-driven wealth platform in the US that recently obtained a licence in Singapore and a capital injection from the Asian city state.  

Hamers' new position draws on his experience at ING – and later at UBS until the spring of 2023 – of championing digital models of banking and finance. 

Hamers is joining other prominent finance and tech figures who are early investors in Arta, such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Mastercard chief executive Michael Miebach.

International ambition
Arta, founded as a US registered investment advisor in October last year, took its international turn in September 2024 by obtaining regulatory approval to start operations in Singapore.

The firm’s platform offers a curated deal flow that includes private investments from fund managers, public market strategies, and structured products. It provides this flow “without the sales pressure, opaque pricing and manual processes found in many other financial institutions,” it said in a statement last Friday. 

The firm has also launched its AI Copilot – patent pending – which enables clients to make more informed investment decisions, cutting out the need for large teams of relationship managers, private bankers, and investment analysts. Another offering is its “wealth-as-a-service” platform for banks.

“Unlike commonly available AI chatbots or apps, Arta’s AI systems are purpose-built for applications in wealth and finance and exploit the reasoning capabilities of the latest large language models,” the firm said.

Singapore Minister of State for Trade and Industry and MAS board member, Alvin Tan was on hand to help launch Arta in the city-state, alongside investors, fund managers, partners, and clients. The company has established functions in Singapore including engineering, marketing, product, design and operations.

Wealth-as-a-service
On a business-to-business front, Arta Finance said last week that Abu Dhabi’s Wio Invest would be the first of several financial institutions to integrate the Arta wealth-as-a-service platform into Wio’s digital investment platform. This will create a new wealth management offering for its clients in the Middle East, pending regulatory approval.

The WaaS platform for banks has been built with support from the venture building team of the Singapore Economic Development Board. The cloud-based platform enables partner banks to get financial services, products and technology to market more quickly.

Arta also unveiled partnerships with Google Cloud and global management and technology consultancy Capco to provide solutions for banks which want to adopt Arta’s technology.

“Singapore is the natural home for Arta’s international business with its rising importance as Asia’s wealth hub,” Amanda Ong, Singapore country director and head of international expansion, said. “The launch of the B2B business is an extension of Arta’s mission, enabling us to partner with banks and financial institutions in a way that is wholly complementary to their current offering. We are proud to welcome Wio as our launch partner and look forward to growing together.”

The firm is a registered investment advisor in the US. (See a related story from last year.) In October 2023, the organisation said it was launching the following elements: private market access; customised public market investments with AI; principal protected growth; protected wealth, via insurance; tax and estate planning services; tax loss harvesting; personal assistance services; and connection services.

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