From Financial Advisor Magazine, by Karen Demasters
As the number of millionaires in the world grows, so does the available targets for fraudsters, said the owners of a firm that focuses on assisting high-net-worth clients and family offices.
Protective measures—many of them based in common sense—need to be taken as wealth rises and high-net-worth families increasingly become the targets of fraudsters, Ken Eyler, CEO, and Joe Farren, president, of Aquilance, a financial services business consulting firm based in Trumbull, Conn., said in an interview. Aquilance works with entrepreneurs, heirs, athletes and other high-net-worth individuals and families.
“I try not to be an alarmist,” Farren said, but there are numerous things to watch out for in today’s world. “If something does not feel right, it probably isn’t.”
Wealth is on the rise in the U.S., giving fraudsters and thieves more targets, the two executives said. The Global Wealth Report from the Credit Suisse Research Institute said in its latest report that the U.S. saw the greatest year-over-year growth in the number of millionaires of any nation with nearly 22 million millionaires reported in 2021. Cyber attackers are acutely aware of this fact, with more than 25% of UHNW families, family offices and family businesses having been targeted in some sort of cyberattack at some point, according to a Campden Research study…
