When AI Meets Fiduciary Expertise: Why Independent Trustees Are Turning to FiduciaCorp

The convergence of regulatory pressure and operational efficiency is forcing a reckoning in our industry. I'm offering a solution built by someone who has walked in your shoes.

The administrative burden crushing independent trustees is no longer a topic of industry conferences; it's the daily reality threatening boutique firms' survival. In recent conversations with partners and operations managers across Zurich, Singapore, and Dubai, the same uncomfortable truth emerges: without operational transformation, independent trustees risk becoming extinct.

The Problem We All Recognize

A partner at a Swiss boutique trustee recently articulated what many of us feel:

"Our team is drowning in administrative work and can no longer dedicate time to thinking about client relationships. There are deadlines, Economic Substance Reports, CRS filings, things that slip through simply because we do everything ourselves."

With small teams managing 150 to 200+ structures, regulatory obligations consuming operational bandwidth, and legacy systems (many still operating on Excel and Word), independent trustees find themselves caught between rising compliance costs and shrinking capacity for client-facing value creation.

This is not written for large platforms with compliance factories. It is written for independent trustees managing 80 to 300 structures who still want to think, not just process.

The existential question deserves our attention: What can boutique firms really offer in added value when larger trustees achieve economies of scale on accounting, filing, and compliance?

Architecture Before Algorithms

What distinguishes Fiduciacorp's approach from the wave of technology vendors now courting our industry is simple: I've walked in the Trustees’ shoes.

Twenty years across JP Morgan, TMF, CSC, serving as Head of Switzerland for Private Clients, and former Pictet Trust company I understand that fiduciary operations cannot be "disrupted" by external technologists unfamiliar with our workflows, regulatory obligations, and client sensitivities.

Fiduciacorp's approach reverses the typical AI implementation sequence: I focus first on architecture. AI comes after. First, the structure. Results are typically visible in two weeks.

I've spent decades watching where operations break down   payments processing, KYC documentation, governance compliance and engineered solutions that minimize disruption while maximizing impact.

The AI Trust Officer™: Three Modules, Immediate Relief

FiduciaCorp's flagship solution addresses the three operational chokepoints every trustee recognizes:

1. Payments Module

Payments executed without chasing bankers.

- Upload client data via standardized template

- Automated payment instruction generation with electronic signatures

- Intelligent follow-up sequences that escalate only when human judgment is required

- Impact: 200 payment instructions executed in minutes not the two weeks your team currently loses

2. KYC Module

KYC that no longer lives in your head.

- Streamlined documentation workflows

- Audit-ready reporting generated automatically

- Compliance tracking that survives staff turnover

3. Governance Module

Governance that survives audits without preparation.

- Terms and conditions distribution to entire client base

- Acknowledgment tracking with automated follow-up

- 200 documents dispatched simultaneously each one logged, timestamped, defensible

The critical differentiator: nothing leaves your servers. No information exits your environment. You remain audit-ready.

For Swiss trustees operating under FINMA scrutiny and increasingly for those with Hong Kong, Singapore, or other multi-jurisdictional obligations, data sovereignty is non-negotiable. FiduciaCorp's architecture respects this constraint absolutely.

Addressing the Revenue Model Question

Every efficiency-minded trustee confronts a commercial dilemma: if we reduce time spent from 20 minutes to 5 minutes per task, don't we invoice less?

This is precisely the transformation opportunity sophisticated firms should seize.

The trustees who thrive in the next decade will be those who transition from time-based billing to fixed-fee models, capturing efficiency gains as margin rather than passing them to clients as discounts. After implementing efficiencies, I move clients to fixed fees. They see stability; I see margin. Everyone benefits.

The firms clinging to hourly billing while competitors deploy AI will find themselves in a race to the bottom they cannot win.

The Fork in the Road

The independent trustee market faces a binary choice: adapt or consolidate into larger platforms that can absorb compliance costs through scale.

FiduciaCorp offers a third path: operational sovereignty through intelligent automation, designed by someone who understands that trust administration is not a software problem, it's a judgment problem supported by efficient execution.

This is not about replacing trust officers. This will liberate them from the administrative work that prevents them from doing what clients actually pay for: thoughtful, personalized fiduciary oversight.

Most firms don't fail. They quietly give up independence. This is the fork in the road.

For boutique firms facing these pressures across Switzerland, Singapore, and Dubai the value proposition is straightforward:

- Implementation: Hours, not months

- ROI visibility: Under two weeks

- Data residency: Your jurisdiction, your servers

- Expertise: Built by a 20-year industry veteran, not Silicon Valley consultants

The regulatory environment will not simplify. The administrative burden will not decrease. The question is whether independent trustees will meet this moment with tools purpose-built for our industry or cede the market to scaled competitors who can absorb inefficiency through volume.

Most conversations start with a single question: Where is operational sovereignty leaking in my firm?

Frédéric Sanz   

Founder, FiduciaCorp

fs@fiduciacorp.com