VuFO: Verband unabhängiger Family Offices

VuFO, in full the Verband unabhängiger Family Offices, describes itself as the representative of family offices in Germany. It is a registered association based in Bonn, and the word in its name that matters is unabhängiger, meaning independent.

Who joins

The association is for independent family offices, which in the German market is a meaningful distinction. A great deal of what is called family office work there is carried out by arms of banks and asset managers, where the office and the product provider are ultimately the same business. VuFO organises the operators who are not in that position.

Its own definition of a family office is worth knowing because it is narrower than common usage. VuFO describes one as an entity supporting a single family or several families in the holistic coordination of managing existing wealth, providing advice, oversight and governance across asset classes. The emphasis on coordination and oversight, rather than on managing money directly, is the distinction the association draws.

The site does not publish a formal independence test or eligibility criteria, so an office wanting to know whether it qualifies should ask.

How membership works

Membership is at organisation level and VuFO publishes no dues. Terms come on application.

What members get

The association sets out four aims, and together they describe a body still building the foundations of a profession rather than running a social calendar.

Exchange of experience among members is the first and most familiar. Professional training and continuing education is the second. Setting quality standards for the sector is the third, which matters in a market where anyone may use the term family office without meeting any test. The fourth is promoting academic research into family offices and wealth strategy, which is unusual for a trade association and reflects how little rigorous study exists of how these organisations actually work.

For a German family office, the case is straightforward. National associations are where sector-specific questions get settled, from how to describe the service to how regulation should treat it, and VuFO is the German seat at that table. It will not give you the event calendar of a commercial network, and that is not what it exists for.

Families with cross-border interests should note that VuFO sits alongside comparable national bodies in France, Italy and Switzerland, each shaped by its own market's rules.