The business, launched in 2019, taps into a need for lawyers and others in the private client space to keep track of, and gather, important information relevant for estate planning and other tasks in an age when paper-based communications are falling out of use.

As the paper-based private client wealth management world becomes more digital, the industry needs to confront the difficulty of organising documents which can be spread across thousands of emails and files.

While modern technology has been a boon in some ways, it also creates headaches for lawyers, accountants, advisors, and other professionals working with HNW clients. There’s a need to pull the digital “back and forth” communications into a coherent type of “vault” when key life moments happen, be they marriage, divorce, death or the sale of a business.

To tap into this need, the firm Zenplans was launched in 2019 – just before conventional business was upended by the pandemic. It was set up to enable individuals and their advisors to hold all essential estate planning information and documentation, including wills, financial information and details of digital assets, in a secure cloud-based platform and to facilitate a holistic approach to estate planning. Once an account is set up, it can be shared with family members, advisors, and executors so that everyone has access to the system at the appropriate time. Data is end-to-end encrypted.

Global law firm Withers is working with Zenplans – and investing in that business – because it sees the big potential benefits from such a resource, Jay Dinwoodie, chief executive of Withers' Private Client and Tax team, recently told this news service. We also spoke to Stephen Moses, managing director of Zenplans.

Today, there is often not much of a “paper trail” of communications and other documents to aid estate planning and structuring. More and more use of digital communications has made the process more complex, Moses said. “We have got these growing footprints online. We are adding more each day and they aren’t taken into account. The goal of Zenplans is to make this easier.”

“The name of the game is about peace of mind,” he continued. 

“There are different sharing levels available for each section of a client's Zenplan. Their advisor could have 'read and write' access with prompts to support planning throughout their lifetime. Whereas their children could have 'future' access should the client become incapacitated or pass away, helping strike a balance between privacy and peace of mind,” Moses said.  

Dinwoodie said he was “really struck” by the ease of use of the Zenplans offering. “We can be users of Zenplans and feed into the process and use the opportunity to also interact with potential clients. This positions us well for the future.”

Withers operates from 17 locations around the world and building its own digital estate planning offering would be daunting, so working with Zenplans is a real advantage, Dinwoodie said. “Zenplans plans to expand around the world.”

At the moment, Zenplans is focused on the UK market. 

“I like to think about Zenplans as future-proofing our client relationships,” Dinwoodie continued. 

Vaults
The idea of pulling together information into a digital platform where, depending on permissions, family members can get access is not entirely new. A decade ago, Citi Private Bank introduced a digital vault. 

In North America, examples include that of Canadian fintech firm FutureVault, which offers secure document exchange and digital vault solutions for the financial services and wealth management industry.