As high-net worth individuals migrate to new technologies, wealth managers risk being left behind.
In recent research, London-based PricewaterhouseCoopers found that wealth management is one of the least tech-literate sectors of the financial services industry, yet wealthy investors are enthusiastically embracing digital tools.
According to PwC’s research, 69 percent of high-net worth individuals are currently using online and mobile banking technology, but only a quarter of wealth managers are offering advice through digital channels beyond e-mail.
On a daily basis, most high-net worth investors, 85 percent, said that they use three or more digital devices, while 98 percent access the Internet or mobile applications. More than 40 percent of the respondents use online portals to review their portfolios or investment markets, and more than one in three are managing their portfolios online.
Almost 60 percent of respondents agreed that it was important that their advisors have a strong digital offering, yet advisors aren’t keeping up.
According to PwC, few advisors have automated and digitized back office and administrative functions, only one in ten uses social media with their clients and many are only now developing web portals and basic mobile applications.
PwC says that most wealth management executives see technology as tools to facilitate the day-to-day operations of advisors, not as disruptors that are changing the way advice is accessed and executed.
Because traditional wealth managers are reticent to embrace new technology, fintech firms stand to attract tech-savvy high-net-worth clients and capture market share from brick-and-mortar advisors.
While only half of PwC’s respondents could correctly identify a robo-advisor, and only 14 percent of the high-net-worth individuals surveyed use one, one-third of the respondents not currently using robo-advisors, and 47 percent of those under 45, would consider using one in the future.
In the PwC survey, only 39 percent of clients were likely to recommend their current wealth managers, and recommendation levels fell to 23 percent among respondents with more than $10 million in investable assets.
PwC argues that traditional wealth managers can only survive if they accelerate their efforts to adopt technologies that integrate every aspect of their activities and corporate culture, from the back office to client services.
Brick-and-mortar financial advisors must also harness technology to streamline their practices, says PwC, and to draw on a wider range of data to demonstrate their value to clients.
The most successful wealth managers will partner with fintech innovators, says PwC, to deliver solutions to clients in real time.
Firms that successfully combine technology and human capital have the greatest opportunity, says PwC, while those who resist digital innovation will become less competitive over time.
PwC’s research was conducted in coordination with Wealth-X in late 2015 and 2016 through surveys of 1,010 high-net-worth individuals with at least $1 million in investable assets in Europe, North America and Asia. The surveys were followed-up with qualitative interviews with 100 client-facing relationship managers at European, Asian, Middle Eastern, South American and North American wealth management firms.
