To what extent has the increased sense of urgency around ESG also changed clients' expectations for their investment strategies and asset management offerings? And to what extent have increased calls for transparency also affected clients' need for insights and financial advice? To answer these and other questions, Roland Berger, in collaboration with Ortec Finance and M2Mobi, recently conducted a study of 200 high net worth individuals (HNWIs) with investable assets of at least EUR 500k to assess the impact of key trends on clients' needs. This study was combined with an expert and outside view to provide wealth managers with opportunities to respond.
"It is interesting to note that 85% of the respondents consider environmental and social impact more important than financial performance."
Besides themes such as ESG and transparency, we also asked HNWIs to what extent their preferences for interacting with their wealth manager have changed during the pandemic, and to what extent the possibility for clients to do more themselves in other sectors has also fueled the need for this in wealth management. In the survey, we included individuals from four different European countries to foster a broad perspective and assess local differences. HNWIs surveyed are from the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Our main findings are summarized in eight key statements, and from these we derived eight recommendations for wealth managers within the four key trends ESG, transparency, remote interaction and do-ityourself.
Key trends have triggered wealth managers to ask how to position themselves now and going forward:
Roland Berger, Ortec Finance and M2Mobi, asses key trends in HNWI needs and how private bankers can address these in a future-proof hybrid offering
