Email Was Built for 1971. Your Advisory Practice Wasn't.

By James Cantwell - Founder Wealthtech Select

A few months ago I argued that many CRMs were built for the wrong business model. There is an even larger mismatch sitting in plain sight: the primary way many advisory firms communicate with clients was built for a world that no longer exists.

This article was written in partnership with Fynancial. The analysis and conclusions are my own. The platform section reflects Fynancial's perspective on how a client experience platform can address the architectural issues described below.

The compliance signal is getting louder

The regulatory direction is unmistakable. In January 2025, the SEC fined 26 firms a combined $392.75 million for off-channel communications violations. Several large firms paid $50 million each. Those penalties followed September 2022 actions where 15 broker-dealers paid $1.1 billion for similar failures. Between 2022 and 2024, the industry paid more than $2.5 billion in fines tied to communications and recordkeeping gaps.

Small firms are not insulated. Firms have been fined for losing 1,100 email records due to archiving failures, and for failing to retain tens of millions of business communications over multiple years. Individual advisors have been suspended for routine behavior such as texting client documents.

Email is not failing because you are using it incorrectly. It is failing because it was never designed for how wealth management operates today.

When email made sense

In 1971, Ray Tomlinson invented email for researchers exchanging messages across ARPANET. It introduced asynchronous communication with universal addressing. When advisory firms adopted it widely in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it solved real problems: reduced phone tag, replaced fax, and created a basic paper trail at almost no marginal cost.

Back then, advisors managed smaller client books, often 60 to 80 relationships. Communication was less frequent. Planning often produced a static deliverable. Statements arrived by mail. Reviews were periodic. Compliance expectations existed, but the environment was simpler.

That world no longer exists. Today, advisory relationships are continuous. Clients expect regular contact, digital access, and faster turnaround. Research shows 74% of consumers now expect digital capabilities from financial services providers. High-performing firms maintain an ongoing rhythm of updates, nudges, and collaboration. That shift exposes email's structural limits.

The architectural mismatch

Email treats relationships as transactions. An email is a self-contained snapshot: a file attached, a message sent, a decision recorded in a thread. But modern advice is dynamic. Plans evolve with life events, market shifts, tax changes, and updated assumptions. When you send "final_v3.pdf" you freeze a moment in time, then ask clients to treat it as current. Three months later, they refer back to what sits in their inbox, not what is now true. Yesterday's conclusion becomes tomorrow's confusion.

Email creates distributed chaos, not centralized truth. Every inbox becomes its own database. Every folder is a personal filing system. Reconstructing "what we agreed" becomes archaeology across threads, forwards, and partial context. This is not only an operational issue. It is a governance issue. When you cannot produce a coherent record, supervision becomes reactive, and regulators treat missing or fragmented records as non-existent.

Email enables shadow communications. Even firms with solid archiving typically only capture what flows through corporate email. But advisors and clients default to convenience: a quick text, a WhatsApp message, a LinkedIn exchange that becomes business. These channels bypass archiving and supervision entirely, which is precisely what enforcement actions have been targeting.

Email's access controls do not match advisory risk. Many firms operate with broad permissions: many people can email clients, with limited pre-send review and inconsistent guardrails. During staff changes, M&A, or departures, email access can linger or become visible to the wrong parties. A portal-based model reduces this by design: if it is not in the controlled environment, it did not happen.

What better looks like

The goal is not "better email management." It is to reposition email as a notification layer, not the primary container for substantive client work.

A portal-based approach shifts the model in three ways:

• From distributed to centralized: one source of truth for conversations, documents, tasks, and audit trails.

• From static to dynamic: clients see the current plan, current assumptions, and current next steps, rather than stale attachments.

• From one-to-one to collaborative: adding spouses, adult children, CPAs, and attorneys becomes controlled and contextual, without forwarding chains and version confusion.

  
  

The results are measurable. Portal-based communications achieve engagement rates exceeding 60%, compared to typical email open rates of 30-40%. When communication matches how clients already interact digitally, they respond.

A platform example: Fynancial's approach

Fynancial is a mobile-first, white-labeled client experience platform for RIAs that centralizes messaging, scheduling, document sharing, and notifications. It integrates with portfolio and reporting systems including Orion, Tamarac, Addepar, and Black Diamond.

The core premise is straightforward: clients respond when communication fits the way they already interact digitally. A chat-style interface with push notifications reduces the "inbox roulette" problem while keeping supervision and recordkeeping inside the system. Task assignment and referral workflows are visible to clients and trackable for the firm, rather than buried in email threads.

The real decision

Email remains excellent for what it was designed to do: universal addressing and lightweight coordination. But core advisory work is now continuous, collaborative, and regulated in ways email was never built to support.

The firms that address this early will not merely reduce risk. They will build a cleaner operating model: clearer records, more controlled communication, and a client experience that reflects how people already manage the rest of their financial lives.

Email was revolutionary in 1971. It is time to build something designed for 2026.