Latin America’s wealth management industry has spent years circling private markets: interested, but structurally unable to distribute them at scale. Today, that trend is shifting, as private ETNs are becoming the infrastructure that makes distribution possible.
This is not a new product looking for its place in a portfolio. It is a distribution foundation that is taking shape and redefining how the region accesses alternative investments.
A Demand the Market Can No Longer Ignore
High-net-worth investors in LatAm allocated at least USD 1 billion to alternative products through offshore wealth managers in 2023, a figure expected to double in 2024.¹ That is not an isolated data point. It reflects a structural shift in how regional capital seeks exposure to private markets.
Globally, nearly half of wealth managers identify meeting client demand for unlisted assets as a critical factor in their 2025 growth plans.² In LatAm, that pressure is sharper: clients are asking for access, platforms need to scale, and international managers are looking for efficient channels into the region.
The bottleneck has never been demand. It has been infrastructure.
A Shift in Mindset, Not Just in Product
Across the region today, wealth platforms are not testing private ETNs as a peripheral product. They are building dedicated teams, structuring their own products, distributing third-party strategies, and establishing partnerships with global asset managers.
The three problems ETNs solve are concrete ones. They simplify access by removing the operational barriers of traditional closed-end funds. They standardize distribution through a single ISIN structure that works across multiple jurisdictions. And finally, they allow strategies to scale without multiplying administrative complexity.
With over USD 13.1 trillion in private market assets globally in 2025, and alternatives averaging 28% of UHNW portfolios, wealth platforms face growing pressure to deliver institutional-grade access to this asset class.³ The question is no longer whether clients want alternatives. It is which structure can deliver them efficiently and at scale.
Why the Timing Is Right
Several factors are converging to make this the moment for infrastructure, not just product.
Consolidation of global institutional interest in LatAm. Latin America is going through a structural transition in which alternative investments are moving beyond the institutional universe and into broader market channels.⁴ That transition requires a distribution layer that did not exist a decade ago.
Arrival of global platforms with a genuine regional focus. Our partnership with iCapital is a concrete example: each private ETN issued under this framework carries a unique ISIN for global distribution, shortens time to market, strengthens offshore channels, and reduces operational complexity.⁴
Maturity of the local ecosystem. Latin America’s fintech ecosystem grew 340% between 2017 and 2023.⁵ Platforms now have the technological capacity to operate products that would have been unviable a few years ago due to operational complexity.
What Comes Next
The experimentation phase with alternatives in LatAm is closing. What follows is the build-out.
Platforms that invest today in structured distribution capabilities, teams, technology, and relationships with global managers, will be better positioned to capture the demand already arriving. Those that wait risk losing the window.
At LynkMarkets, this is precisely where our focus sits: providing the infrastructure that enables private banks and wealth platforms to build, distribute, and scale investment strategies across the region through ETN technology. Not as an add-on service, but as the layer on which the next generation of alternatives distribution is built.
The product was the first chapter. Infrastructure is the second, and in LatAm, that chapter is opening now.
Luciano Acosta is Chief Revenue Officer at LynkMarkets, a fintech platform empowering private market distribution.
References
- Cerulli Associates — Demand for Alternative Investments Rises in Latin America and U.S. Offshore Market — cerulli.com
- Natixis Investment Managers — Wealth Management Industry Outlook 2025 — im.natixis.com
- Finantrix — Buyer’s Guide: Alternative Investment Management Platforms for Wealth Managers — finantrix.com
- iCapital — iCapital Makes Strategic Investment in LYNK Markets — icapital.com
- J.P. Morgan Private Bank — Latin America in 2026: Between Promise and Pressure — privatebank.jpmorgan.com
