By Howard Enders, COO, The Estate Registry
Our financial lives sit inside authenticated systems. Accounts, statements, tax forms, insurance documents, and keys live in apps, portals, and cloud storage. That shift delivered speed and control, but it also exposed a blind spot for the people families trust most. I have seen an executor arrive with a binder, only to leave feeling powerless because the decedent’s estate—now made up of digital bank accounts, investment platforms, and cloud-stored records— existed entirely inside systems that recognized only the original user’s credentials. That is not a failure of intent. It is a failure of translation between legacy directives and modern controls. Fintech solved real-time access for living customers. The next mandate is a clean handoff of authority that preserves privacy, meets policy, and moves without weeks of uncertainty.
Traditional Estate Planning Wasn’t Built for a Digital-First World
Historical estate planning assumed a small set of counterparties and assets that sat on statements. That world favored paper trails, in-person attestations, and a clear line from a will to a known single custodian. Today, value spreads across neobanks, brokerages, payment apps, cloud drives, and platforms that follow strict verification protocols. A will can assign an executor, yet that assignment does not answer the questions a custodian must resolve. For example, who may access which records? When does access begin? What proof satisfies policy and law?
Password lists and informal sharing create the illusion of readiness. They do not create authority that a risk team can defend. Plans that rely on secrets often conflict with controls designed to prevent misuse. The result feels like a delay, although the real issue is translation. Family intent does not appear in the form institutions are permitted to honor.
As Financial Lives Move Online, Wealth Transfer Needs to Catch Up
Digital channels are no longer edge tools. In a national survey released by the American Bankers Association, 55% of U.S. bank customers reported that a mobile app was their most-used channel to manage accounts, and 22% cited online banking on a computer. The way people interact with their money has shifted toward authenticated, remote access. Authority transfers should reflect that reality through digital directives, verified evidence, and audit trails that hold up to review.
Many firms still route successor requests through mailed forms or branch visits. Those steps grew from sensible guardrails. The work now is to preserve those guardrails inside a digital path that collects documents, validates identity, and records every decision. Families should see movement after the first notification rather than a series of untracked escalations.
The High Stakes of Overlooking Digital Wealth
A majority of Americans express limited confidence in current crypto systems. This is supported by a Pew Research Center report, which shows that 63% of U.S. adults have little to no confidence in the reliability or safety of the ways people invest in, trade, or use cryptocurrency. Clearly, confidence drops further when heirs cannot locate keys or present authority that an exchange will accept. Value can also sit idle or disappear. The same pattern appears with payment app balances, creator platforms, and digital storefronts that hold working capital. When no one can authenticate a successor with a defined scope, trust erodes for families and institutions.
This is more than an experience problem. If a firm cannot show a clean chain of custody from customer intent to verified authority to specific action, every exception incurs additional costs, delays, and higher chances of dispute.
Fintech’s Evolution Depends on Closing the Digital Estate Gap
Fintech excelled at clarity and speed during ordinary days. Continuity after a life event now defines whether customers trust a platform with the rest of the journey. Families look for movement when control must shift, and regulators expect proof that policy guides each step.
The legacy approach grew around paper directives, branch attestations, and a small circle of custodians. That model struggles once value lives inside authenticated systems that must verify authority. Passwords or informal notes establish possession, not permission. Email threads and case-by-case exceptions leave frontline teams responsible for carrying out customer requests, such as ownership transfers or account updates, without a defensible basis to act, so requests pause and costs rise. The experience feels slow because intent does not appear in a format institutions can accept.
A better path treats authority as data rather than as a shared secret. The platform records intent in a form that custodians recognize and verify evidence against defined conditions. Access changes only within policy and only for the role in scope. A tax preparer can see statements and year-end forms, while a fiduciary can settle the account. Triggers unlock what that role requires, and nothing beyond it. Each request carries its record of who initiated it, which artifacts were checked, who approved, and what changed. Investigators can reconstruct events without guesswork, and frontline teams move with confidence because the proof travels with the request. Families see progress after the first notice, and firms preserve privacy and control that stands up to review.
Modernizing Wealth Transfer Is Fintech’s Next Competitive Edge
Families and firms need confidence that proof travels through a channel everyone can trust. Paper packets, email threads, and branch handoffs break that trust because authenticity is hard to verify, and records scatter across systems. A digital intake that is secure and verifiable closes that gap. Death records, court orders, and physician statements move through a controlled path that checks authenticity and anchors results to the customer record. Sensitive items demand restraint that slows misuse without blocking legitimate requests. Time-locked release with dual approvals provides restraint, and alerts to monitoring teams keep oversight active without adding friction that families cannot absorb. The path advances, and defenses remain intact for the reviewers who enforce policy.
Measurement turns policy into performance. Track the time from first notice to completed handoff, and record the reason each case stops. Use that view to fix prompts and refine trigger definitions, with evidence thresholds set to reflect real risk rather than guesswork. The discipline that improved onboarding can improve successor access once data is exposed where work stalls. Annual rehearsal keeps plans current. A brief readiness check surfaces stale contacts and reveals unlinked accounts. Missing directives appear as clear prompts that customers and advisors can resolve before a crisis.
Benefits extend beyond a single handoff. Claims teams move faster because authority is settled early, and accountants receive documents through a preauthorized channel that limits access to what their role allows. This calls for a system that proves who is authorized and the scope of access at a defined moment, so families see progress and institutions stand on firm ground.
Fintech has already proved it can deliver clarity at scale. It is time to extend that clarity to the moment when authority must change hands. Families need movement after the first notice. Institutions need a defensible chain from intent to action. A digital handoff that treats authority as data, verifies evidence, and records every decision meets both needs.
About Author:
Howard Enders is the Chief Operating Officer of the Estate Registry, where he leverages his extensive expertise in operations and management to drive growth and innovation. A graduate of the University of Delaware, Howard furthered his education at Widener University School of Law, equipping him with a strong foundation in legal and regulatory matters. As a trusted leader, Howard collaborates with teams to implement strategic initiatives that ensure the security and effectiveness of the estate management process.
