The evolution of asset management in North America has created a fundamental challenge that legacy systems simply cannot solve: the need for genuinely global client data infrastructure that operates seamlessly across markets, vehicles, and channels whilst maintaining the sophistication required by today's most complex distribution networks.
The conversations happening across the industry right now tell a consistent story. From executive boardrooms, through to marketing engagement, sales calls, client servicing or reporting, the same themes emerge: managers are wrestling with fragmented data across an increasingly complex distribution landscape, regulatory expectations continue to ratchet upward, and the competitive pressure to deliver institutional-grade experiences and service to every client - regardless of vehicle or channel - has never been more intense. What began as isolated frustrations about data quality or occasional trade reconciliation headaches has evolved into a broader recognition that client data infrastructure itself has become a strategic differentiator. These aren't abstract concerns - they're shaping product roadmaps, technology investments, and how forward-thinking managers position themselves in an increasingly crowded market.
When we expanded Aiviq's operations and comprehensive data coverage to North America, we did so with a clear conviction: client data management isn't about regional silos or patchwork solutions. The architecture challenge is universal - fragmented data across vehicles, platforms, and distribution networks that legacy systems were never designed to unify. What differs is scale. The US market's breadth - spanning wirehouses, RIAs, defined contribution platforms, model marketplaces, and direct institutional relationships - makes unified client data infrastructure essential for scaling distribution without scaling headcount proportionally.
The North American Moment
The US market has historically benefited from superior client data visibility. Compared with the fragmented distribution models and regulatory approaches towards client transparency seen in European or Asian markets, intermediary data for North American managers felt complex and voluminous, but broadly sufficient for delivering prospecting/lead generation or sales enablement use cases. This advantage stemmed directly from FINRA and SEC regulations that mandated firm-office-rep transparency, establishing clear accountability for intermediaries managing omnibus accounts and requiring detailed record-keeping that gave US asset managers visibility into their actual end clients.
But that analytical capability has begun to evaporate in the last three to five years.
The explosion of active ETFs, retail separately managed accounts (SMAs), and model portfolio solutions has fundamentally altered the data landscape. These aren't incremental differences to traditional fund structures - they represent entirely new data sourcing and client attribution challenges. Model portfolios create layered relationships between advisory firms, platforms, and underlying fund holdings. Retail SMAs introduce account-level personalisation that legacy systems never anticipated. Active ETFs blur the line between product types, creating additional operational complexity.
Simultaneously, US asset managers have expanded into genuinely global firms, penetrating international markets on the strength of exceptional domestic equity performance relative to G7 peers. This global expansion has manifested in product proliferation: UCITS variants of flagship 40 Act funds, region-specific alternative vehicles, and offerings tailored to non-domiciled US clients and international investors. Meanwhile, truly global institutional investors have begun expecting more integrated solutions, differentiated service, and partners who can construct portfolios across their global investment needs - unified data underpinning these requirements has become table stakes. Yet most US firms still operate fragmented regional data stacks that cannot provide these views.
What Global Architecture Actually Means
There's a meaningful difference between a global platform and a platform available globally. The distinction matters enormously for building the integrated data and technology infrastructure that client and sales teams now require.
A genuinely global client data architecture must solve for structural differences across markets whilst maintaining a single unified view. That's exponentially harder than building a platform that just works locally in one region. It requires understanding how beneficial ownership rules differ between jurisdictions. It demands native handling of multi-tiered distribution chains that look completely different in North America versus Continental Europe. It necessitates data models flexible enough to accommodate ETF structures, model portfolios, private markets, and traditional funds in a single system without shortcuts or workarounds. Finally, it means solving for local needs in each and every region to deliver a global answer that the whole enterprise can adopt.
At Aiviq, we built this from first principles. Our data model wasn't designed for US markets and adapted for others - it was architected to handle the complete complexity of global asset management simultaneously. That means US asset managers benefit from years of enterprise-scale deployment across diverse markets, regulatory frameworks, and product structures.
The practical outcome is significant: you gain access to proven capabilities that have been battle-tested across multiple regions, rather than experimental features deployed regionally.
The Specific Challenges US Firms Face Today
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Managing product innovation at scale. Active ETFs, model portfolios, and retail SMAs are driving revenue growth, but they're creating sales coverage and client coordination nightmares. Legacy systems treat these as edge cases; modern platforms must treat them as standard. When model portfolios or multi-asset solutions create multiple fund-of-fund layers across different vehicles, you need infrastructure that understands this natively. Aiviq's platform was designed precisely for this - we've deployed at scale in markets where product innovation has been ahead of the US, meaning we've already solved problems your firm is just beginning to encounter.
Building genuine global client views. Most US asset managers rely on manual workarounds to consolidate client holdings across regions. One team manages US domiciled client relationships, another manages European distribution, another handles alternatives. Finance teams spend weeks attempting to manually reconcile these fragmented views for different use cases – financial forecasting, investor reporting, transfer pricing, sales compensation etc. A global platform eliminates this friction by design. When your infrastructure recognises that the Separately Managed Account, the ’40 Act Mutual Fund purchased via Schwab, and the Irish-domiciled UCITS ETF are all part of the same global client relationship, consolidated reporting becomes automatic rather than aspirational.
Keeping pace with regulatory evolution. The regulatory environment in North America continues to evolve in ways that create data management challenges. Beneficial ownership reporting, distributed advisor oversight, changing fee models, and evolving ETF regulation all demand granular visibility into client relationships and distribution chains. A platform architected globally may have already navigated these challenges in other jurisdictions and factors in change and scalability by design. You benefit from that accumulated experience.
Deploying AI use cases that actually deliver value. The last 12 months has seen convergence amongst foundation AI models (e.g. Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropics’ Claude, as well as open source rivals), which is forcing managers to focus back on what uniquely gives them an edge – the quality of their enterprise data to power custom models and AI-enabled workflows that 10x the efficacy of front-line teams. At Aiviq, we're building intelligence-native capabilities purpose-built for asset managers – efficiency tooling for client mastering, sales attribution and fee management as well as predictive models for client redemption risk quantification and growth propensity modelling, all of which is dependent on the unified, high-quality global data foundations.
Why This Matters Now
Competitive pressure in US asset management has never been higher. Passive vehicles have compressed margins on traditional products. New Alternatives offering in Wealth continue to reshape distribution economics. Emerging competitors are willing to operate with dramatically lower cost bases. In this environment, Aiviq has seen how the operational agility a global client data platform provides can offer a genuine source of competitive advantage.
Firms that have invested in global-grade client data infrastructure gain the ability to:
- Consolidate global reporting and make faster, better informed commercial decisions based on worldwide client economics
- Automate complex attribution across product structures that would be manual nightmares in legacy systems
- Deploy AI insight products that generate genuine business as well as improve organisational efficiency
- Reduce operational costs by eliminating the spreadsheet workarounds and manual processes that consume thousands of hours annually
- Scale efficiently as assets grow and complexity increases, rather than adding proportional operational burden
A Different Approach
Global client data excellence isn't theoretical. It's already enabling asset managers across markets to scale distribution efficiently, respond to regulatory requirements faster, and deliver institutional-grade experiences across every client segment and vehicle type.
For US asset managers, the question isn't whether to invest in modern client data infrastructure - it's whether to build it internally using scarce resources and significant time, or accelerate through proven foundational capabilities already delivering at scale for $1tn+ AUM managers, freeing your teams to focus on what truly differentiates you.
