Abbove is a wealth planning platform that helps financial institutions to thoroughly understand their clients’ situation by consolidating wealth information, to offer customized solutions with the help of powerful planning tools and simulators, and to permanently accompany their clients via a digital client interface.
Back in 2017, Guillaume Desclée interviewed 120 wealthy families about the challenges they were facing regarding their wealth management. During this time, he organised workshops with a range of stakeholders to understand their needs. Guillaume Desclée highlighted the main source of discomfort for this group was that they were anxious about not having a clear understanding of their wealth situation due to its complexity.
He explained, “These families have lots of different types of holdings, their assets are quite diversified, and its embedded into complex family structures, so they felt bad as they couldn’t put a figure on their wealth. They felt they had to truly understand their wealth, but because their information and documents were scattered, they had no access or control over that information.”
A key worry for such families were how wealth events such as wealth transfer succession would impact the families if they were not anticipated or organised ahead of time.
“They really needed that understanding and access to information as well as a way to collaborate, and with those families, I presented a solution and we built it together,” said Guillaume Desclée. “We spent thousands of hours with them, hand-in-hand, building the right solution for them, and that’s where Abbove was born – the one place which centralised everything regarding family wealth for everyone. This includes advisors, family members and wealth experts, it connects everyone on the same information base to communicate and collaborate around it.”
More than 1,100 wealth advisors across Europe – from family offices and private banks – use Abbove to better serve 35,000 families and connect with 180,000 family members.
Abbove as a platform places the advisor at the center of the client’s choices and wealth strategy, helping to serve as a long-term relationship anchor. The firm provides a suite of wealth management, estate planning and financial planning tools that are connected to data and can process said data to provide clients with the solution to each goal that has been identified. Recommendations and solutions are also reported directly in the platform or is personalised reports that can be generated directly within the solution.
"We help banks produce more than 8000 personalised wealth reports a year to their clients without changing the number of people working in the organisation."
“It enhanced the ability of the bank to scale such an approach and services to all their clients, so they are producing lots of personalized reports to their clients in a few clicks, and that’s very qualitative.”
The logic of the Abbove platform is based on four key pillars, starting with understanding – this is defined as organising the collection of wealth data between the client and the advisor and models the information related to the family’s wealth through a collaborative interface. It then defines the objectives of the client, provides wealth management and advisory tools that are directly connected to the wealth data, and continuously monitors the relationships through constant tracking and personalised wealth reports.
📈 The Great Wealth Transfer
Abbove’s platform is being leveraged for its benefits in the ongoing wealth transfer from the baby boomer generation to the next generation. Much of these assets are leaving organisations the year after the death of the boomer, as the next generation is leaving because due to a lack of connection with banks and wealth providers. Recent research by Merill sourced by Abbove found that the estimated wealth to be inherited through 2045 by generation was strongest in Gen Xers, who are set to inherit $30trn, whilst millennials are not far behind on $27trn.
The Great Wealth Transfer is set to represent the largest intergenerational shift of wealth in history. Across the world, $18trn is projected to be transferred by 2030, with $124 trillion anticipated in the U.S. alone through 2048.
According to Abbove, wealth managers can ride this wealth transfer wave through several key steps. These include building multi-generational relationships with families, use transparent communication with clients, incorporate financial education into their platforms, tailor investment strategies to evolving wealth management trends, leveraging estate planning tools and embracing technology to meet the demands of today’s customers.
Abbove can help its clients navigate such changes by providing the tools to streamline estate planning, create dynamic simulations, and centralise family wealth data for real-time access.
“We have this tool that is really able to involve the next generation in their wealth planning strategies and help to create that connection with this next generation to keep them on board and beyond,” said Guillaume Desclée.
🧬 The Abbove USP
In a sector growing as fast as the wealth management technology sector, it is critical firms can set themselves apart from the competition. How does Abbove do this?
For Guillaume Desclée, the key watchword is family centricity. “You have lots of portfolio management systems that extend their aggregation to non-liquid assets, but we go much beyond that. It’s really understanding how much your wealth is embedded into this family structure in terms of ownership, but it also involves lots of family relationship topics, so what we do is to help people build the best strategies to fit with not just economic constraints but also family relationship constraints.”
Guillaume Desclée remarked that Abbove’s technology is fundamentally based on behaviours and goes beyond money.
He explained, “Of course, we do wealth planning, and we can operate internationally doing wealth planning, as the tax dimension that is related to wealth planning is being co-opted within the platform.
"What we are really good at is building that wealth overview because we're engaging with the client, and the platform is very collaborative, family centric as its built from the beginning around the needs of the family."
🌍 Future plans
The ambition for Abbove going forward is for the company to become the first ever pan-European wealth planning platform. As the firms look to continue its strong growth, the company aims to push this forward through increasing its private banking distribution.
“We’re working on this by extending our data model to more geographical jurisdictions to expand its impact – there’s already over 180,000 people benefitting from this platform today, and our goal is to grow by connecting with many more wealth organisations that want to transform the way they serve their clients,” exclaimed Guillaume Desclée.
He concluded, “Our mission is to make wealth a tool for connection and elevation for families, both today and for generations to come. Wealth advisors now have the opportunity to embrace a digital, engaging, and collaborative approach to meet the expectations of a rapidly evolving market.”
Extract from an interview with Guillaume Desclée, CEO of Abbove, following the company's publication in the 2025 Wealth Tech 100 report.
