New research has found that 29 per cent of UK’s under-40s believe recommendations from their wealth manager have not been in line with their risk tolerance, while 26 per cent feel their investment strategy has not been fully explained to them.
The report from NPG Wealth Management, SEI and Scorpio Partnership also found that UK respondents cited the quality of products and services that they receive as main reason for generating trust in their wealth management firm.
More than 3,000 people were surveyed globally, 17 per cent of which were from Europe, with an average wealth of around £1.7m.
Younger clients were significantly more focused on the robustness of security processes, with 24 per cent of UK under 40s stating this is an important influencer over their trust in the firm, compared to 19 per cent of all UK respondents.
The findings also suggested that wealth management firms have a vital role to play in generating client confidence in their relationship manager.
For 63 per cent of the UK’s wealthy, trust in a relationship manager is fostered by the quality of advice they receive, with a further 52 per cent saying confidence came from the expertise level on display, putting an onus on firms to recruit the right calibre of personnel.
Marc Stevens, chief executive at NPG Wealth Management, commented: “Wealth management firms need to be mindful that younger clients are not as satisfied about the service delivery as their predecessors. In particular, younger clients are much more information hungry than their predecessors and require both education and mentoring.”
Brett Williams, managing director at the SEI Wealth Platform, told FTAdviser that he has been seeing wealth managers realising they need to try different things to capture younger clients.
“They are typically more information hungry and want to deal with their adviser and investment manager in the same way they do other things in their life; with much more digital and online contact.”
He added that given younger clients’ concerns around cyber security, wealth managers should be focusing on their core competencies and outsourcing things like technology and security to external experts.
peter.walker@ft.com
