We recently talked to the US-headquartered group about how it goes about serving family offices and the trends it sees unfolding.

Wherever you look, it seems hard to avoid examples of large banks talking about their family office offerings. Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, UBS and Citigroup, among others, have been building out services and explaining their value propositions. 

There has been a plethora of reports, surveys and industry events. Family offices are everywhere. Deloitte thinks there could be almost 11,000 of them by 2030, from 8,030 in 2024. 

How to stand apart in capturing a large slice of all this? Well, Northern Trust, the Chicago-headquartered group (see a previous profile here), says its family office capabilities stand out, among other qualities, in where these services sit. Northern Trust says it doesn’t require clients to use its investment products, nor does it take part in other fields such as investment banking or retail mortgages. 

Northern Trust works with a total of 550 family offices worldwide, giving it a significant chunk of the globe’s wealthiest families. And it has been working in this space for more than 40 years – making it one of the earliest players. In August last year, Northern Trust told this publication that 30 per cent of the Forbes 400 [Americans] are clients of its global family office group.

This news service recently dug into some of the details when it sat down in Northern Trust’s Canary Wharf, London offices with Dino De Vita, president of Global Family and Private Investment Offices (GFO), and Belinda Aspinall, the firm’s regional lead for GFO in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Northern Trust is the fastest growing area in the wealth management franchise. International revenues have tripled in the last two years, with strong momentum in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific, Aspinall said. “We have expanded our presence in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia,” she said. 

Aspinall talked about the range of clients that Northern Trust can work with, such as newly-liquid entrepreneurs deploying capital into new investments; mid-sized FOs managing assets for several households and foundations, and multi-generational families with sophisticated investment programmes and FO teams. 

Among the services offered are banking, fiduciary, investments and technology. The group can also advise families with its institutional strength, such as supporting families in transition, whether its business owners are preparing for exits, rising generations taking the reins, preserving and directing wealth for the future, and other goals.

In its second-quarter 2025 financial results, figures appear to bear out a picture of wealth-related growth. Northern Trust reported that client assets under custody and administration (AuC/A) rose 9 per cent on a year ago to stand at $18.1 trillion at 30 June; wealth management assets under custody rose 9 per cent, to $14.2 trillion. The headline profit figure fell sharply in Q2 from a year ago, in large part because last year's figure was inflated by its participation in the Visa Exchange offer. (That latter point relates to Northern Trust realising a gain on its Visa Inc common stock holding, a position held since Visa’s initial public offering in 2008.) Shares in Northern Trust have risen about 21 per cent since the start of January. 

Sweet spot
All this talk of size and capability raises the question of what is the minimum size of assets that a family needs for a family office to be viable concern. 

Aspinall said the “sweet spot” for a GFO client at Northern Trust is at least $500 million in assets to have a well-capitalised family office. But there’s a caveat – it is not just about the balance sheet. Asset thresholds can vary by the market/region and by what the client is trying to achieve.

Private and alternative
A dominant theme in the past decade is private market investing, and barring a dramatic economic reverse, this shows few signs of abating. 

“We have also had a shift of asset allocations to private markets and a lot of information [from clients] is required for all that as well,” Aspinall said. Northern Trust’s research shows that most clients have about 40 per cent of total allocations to private markets/alternatives. An important theme within this is access to deals. The group’s size and access to institutional deal flow are plusses in a competitive space, she said. 

As reported here and here, family offices are typical exemplars of “patient capital” – they are able to take a medium-term view of how to deploy money at scale, which is a luxury shared by few, including sovereign wealth funds. In volatile market conditions, family offices are arguably becoming more professional at diversifying risk, hunting for opportunities and staying ahead of trends.

Tech
Another piece of the pie is technology. These organisations need to figure out the most suitable vendors and providers from what is a bewildering field. It can be hard to know where to start. (See a discussion on this topic here.)

De Vita said helping family offices in this sort of area is of significant value. 

“We know exactly the kind of technology they need…we can help them co-ordinate that tech and run it in a seamless way. We can help them avoid wasting time and sorting through vendors,” he said. 

The firm can help family offices use its network to find out what sort of tech has worked out for them, and what hasn’t. For example, De Vita said, Northern Trust can help family office creators “map” what they want to achieve, for example, using a checklist to tailor an office to their needs. 

Cybersecurity risks are a major concern) – an area that a big beast of the financial jungle such as Northern Trust can advise clients on. It can also help clients decide what services family offices they should manage in-house and what services should be outsourced – considerations that tend to take a sharper edge as regulatory and other costs rise.

Aspinall was asked about the compliance challenges firms of all sizes face, particularly with jurisdictions appearing to tighten anti-money laundering, know-your-client and other requirements. 

“Standards [of onboarding] are being raised globally. It is very difficult to grandfather [a client] from one institution to another. You have to be clear from the outset what the requirements [on a client] are going to be. That is not just about AML and KYC – for a fund structure, for example, the migration can be four, five or six months in the lead time,” Aspinall said. “Family offices are aware of what is required.”

Finally, with all the angst that sometimes appears to be hanging over the UK at the moment, given concerns about rising taxes and an exodus of wealthy individuals, this publication asked what this American institution thinks about London and UK. 

“The UK is very important to us and we have an existing franchise here. There are a lot of opportunities,” Aspinall said. In any event, she said, Northern Trust plans its strategy over a four/five-year time horizon. 

Beyond the UK, there are other European opportunities, she added: “We are seeing greater momentum with European families, structuring via Luxembourg funds, and we have had a lot of success there.”

(For a separate, but related examination of what banks are doing to serve family offices in Germany – a country with a large if sometimes under-reported family offices sector – see here and here.)