Why quality engineering must be part of the race to 2030

At Assured Thought, we’re always looking ahead to understand the pressures and priorities that will shape the futures of our financial services clients. Reading SS&C’s ‘Race to 2030’ report, one message stood out for us: technology alone will not solve the sector’s biggest challenges. It must be implemented well, integrated fully and supported by processes that are robust, reliable and repeatable. That concept is the very essence of quality engineering, and that is why we believe quality engineering will be critical to success in financial services between now and 2030.

The advice gap is also a systems gap

The report reveals a striking disparity between supply and demand. While 19.2 million UK clients have £100k or more in investable assets, only 2.7 million currently receive ongoing advice. That’s just 14 per cent of the potential market.

To close that gap, firms are turning to digital tools, automation and AI to increase capacity. But as ‘The Race to 2030’ highlights, too many firms are still held back by fragmented systems, disjointed processes and poor integration. In fact, the average advice firm uses seven different systems to deliver its service, often rekeying client data multiple times. This doesn’t just affect efficiency – it increases the risk of errors, undermines trust and makes scaling up more difficult.

Quality engineering brings clarity, control and confidence

For us, this is where quality engineering can have the biggest impact. QE is about building reliable systems that work well together, ensuring data flows cleanly between platforms and designing client journeys that are seamless from start to finish.

Whether it’s used in testing automation logic, validating integrations or creating consistent onboarding workflows, quality engineering supports both compliance and client experience. As ours is a sector in which regulatory expectations and customer expectations are both rising, that matters more than ever.

As the report rightly states, it’s no good just building a bigger version of an inefficient model. Scaling with quality means rethinking how systems operate together – and that’s exactly what we help firms to achieve.

Future-ready firms will be engineered for trust

The paper explores how firms will need to offer hybrid, multi-channel services that are both personal and efficient. It explores using AI to speed up processes, simplify advice production and reduce cost-to-serve. But the common theme is trust – clients need to feel that they are in safe hands, whether they are engaging online or face-to-face.

That kind of trust isn’t built purely through relationships: it also demands consistency, transparency and technical reliability. If systems are slow, error-prone or poorly connected, that trust quickly erodes.

With a proper quality engineering strategy, advice firms can remove the friction that undermines client confidence, reduce the cost of compliance and deliver at scale without compromise.

Final thought

The Race to 2030 sets out a bold but achievable vision for the future of financial advice. For those of us working behind the scenes to support that transformation, it’s a reminder that technology must be both powerful and dependable.

At Assured Thought, we believe quality engineering is the key to making that happen. It’s not just about testing code. By following robust, reliable and repeatable QE strategies, advice firms can grow with confidence, deliver more value to more people and be truly 2030-ready.