While acknowledging that the two groups serve different demographics, “the ease of use, frequency of updates and relatively intuitive interface at fintechs likely sets high customer expectations for financial services apps more broadly.” When layering in weightings of average reviews from users in Apple Store and Google Play, as well as functions, only Bank of America and the discount brokers/RIA custodians land in the top of the list dominated by technology upstarts. The report relies in part on how frequently client-facing applications are updated to discern a firm’s tech-savviness retail-facing banks updated their apps twice as often as wealth management firms, but both channels fall far behind pure-digital financial services firms, like Robinhood, Wealthfront and Betterment. Wealth managers have not yet experienced similar levels of urgency.” Improvement in retail banks’ client-facing digital capabilities has been driven by evolving client expectations and a strong need to reduce cost-to-serve to protect profitability. especially in comparison to retail banks. “The industry’s technological capabilities remain immature. Smaller firms struggled with that, lacking “the remote working protocols and digital client engagement infrastructure.”Īnd wealth management firms fall significantly behind banks when it comes to deploying technology, the report says. The lockdowns prompted a “significant upward shift in client expectations of their wealth manager’s digital capabilities,” according to the report. The takeaway? Over the next few years, advisors should expect to see an accelerated wave of consolidation, as “sub-scale” advisors look for better technology platforms than what they can buy or build themselves.ĭuring the pandemic, wealth management firms saw a seven- to 10-times increase in engagement across all digital channels, including a four- to five-times increase in accessing digital research, three- to four-times increase in client-facing webinars, and more than doubled the number of client meetings over video.

COVID-19 disruptions to the markets and the economy will hasten adoption of digitization and a need for scale in the wealth management space, according to an extensive report published by Morgan Stanley and Oliver Wyman on the state of wealth management post Covid-19.

Wealth tracker apps