Covid-19 has fundamentally changed the Wealth Management industry, evolving client demands and changing how to deliver advice and serve clients. According to Oliver Wyman Global Wealth Management Report, during the pandemic there has been a massive increase in client engagement across digital channels.

Objectway, featuring The Wealth Mosaic Swiss Wealth Tech Landscape Report deeply investigates how to increase front office efficiency and intergenerational wealth retention through digital change.

Wealth Digital Scenario in a nutshell

The pandemic has proven the existing advice delivery model to be somewhat resilient, but with some limitations. In particular, as underlined by Oliver Wyman, large bank owned Wealth Managers have found greater success leveraging channel upgrades made over recent years, while smaller independent Wealth Managers have had more difficulty managing client engagement due to a lack of remote working protocols and digital client engagement infrastructure.

It’s interesting to see how the next normal is looking like. Wealth Managers need to design the advice delivery model of the future, which will have to be omni-channel, blending the expertise and human touch of a Relationship Manager, with the efficiency, convenience and scalability of digital solutions.

Moreover, as detected by the Compeer – End Client Research, significant improvements are absolutely required by clients demand in terms of digital technology such as client portal, reporting and frictionless onboarding. Indeed, if improvements won’t be made, 41% of investors are likely to pivot to another client portal provider and 60% will be looking for another provider of client reporting.

A digital transformation is therefore mandatory, both for an effective delivery model of wealth management services, and for client retention and acquisition.

Key strategic priorities

We reckon that to attract new clients and younger generations of investors in the digital arena, firms will be now demanded to:

Tasks investment managers normally do would be therefore automated. This way, investment managers could effectively focus on high value tasks, such as increasing front-office productivity, with more clients being managed, improving margins through cost-savings initiatives and migrate to fee-based advisory services.

To do so, organisations realise that an integrated Client Lifecycle Management solution is needed. One that is embedded in the operational processes of a given firm, integrated to the existing systems and supporting all areas of a business.

This tactic only will allow firms to achieve the above-mentioned objectives and many others: switching from paper to digital, holistically improving the digital solution offered to all end-clients; increasing the speed at which clients receive portfolio information thus reducing the overhead around reporting and cutting operational expenditure; reducing production time, postage costs, errors and operational efforts; raising the bar on digital onboarding, creating new services for existing clients and compliance oversight.

To rephrase it, enable significant growth without impacting the firm’s overall profitability!