The global wealth management industry faces converging megatrends that willredefine investor needs and reshape the industry. These trends include rapidtechnology innovation, mounting regulation, heightened competition, demographicshifts, and economic and geopolitical uncertainty.
To prepare for the next era of wealth management, investment firms need a clearview into the changing future expectations of today’s diverse set of investors—andhow competitors are rethinking their products and services, go-to-market plans,value propositions, and business models to keep them happy. Having a cogent AI anddigital transformation strategy will be an imperative.
Making the investor the North Star
Investment firms must put the investor at the center of their plans. This requiresfresh thinking, since traditional investor segmentation no longer adequatelyaddresses today’s heterogenous marketplace. With investor demographics shiftingfast, creating a mix of investors by wealth, age, location, gender, and lifestyle,providers need a deeper understanding of their customers and their morphing needsand behaviors.
To provide wealth management leaders with insights into investor shifts, ThoughtLab joined forces with a select group of wealth industry expertsto conduct a ground-breaking study,Building a Future-ReadyInvestment Firm.
Rigorous evidence-based research
The research is based on a survey of 2,000 investors, conducted in October-November 2023, across countries, wealth levels, ages, lifestyles, occupations,gender, and other characteristics. It explores the future of the wealth industrythrough the eyes of investors: how their expectations around customer experience, digital interactions, and client relationships are changing; whatproducts and services they want in today’s era of democratization; which feestructures and value propositions will work best; and the firms they plan towork with to meet their investment needs.
The study also included a benchmarking survey of senior executives from across-section of 250 wealth management firms, from independent wealthadvisors and private banks to wealth management divisions within regional andinternational banks. It examines how service providers are adapting to theshifting investor imperatives, including their plans around product and services,pricing and business models, and use of digital technologies. To gain greater insight, we also conducted interviews with top executives from 11 firms.
To cope with seismic industry changes ahead, wealth management providerswill need to harness digital and process innovation to become future ready. Thisreport provides them with the road map to do just that and will be available February 2024.