The WEALTHTECH Book

What Do Wealthy Clients Think About Digital Wealth Management?

By Prof. Dr Teodoro D. Cocca

Professor for Wealth and Asset Management, Johannes Kepler University Linz

The rise of FinTech is forcing banks to rethink the way they interact with their customers. The ongoing discussion about the revolutionary potential of technological innovation in wealth management and other areas of banking is mostly dominated by the view of industry experts and consultants. Unfortunately, more often than not, the client perspective is neglected. This chapter aims to close this gap, based on in-depth survey results completed by wealth management clients in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. In contrast to other chapters, which examine data from general customer surveys, this study only considers customers in the segment of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), defined as having liquid financial assets of at least EUR 500,000. The average sum in financial assets of the people surveyed is EUR 2.5 million, and the average age is 59 years. Thus, the data basis corresponds to an average client book of a private bank offering wealth management services. The surveys were carried out in 2012, 2014 and 2016, which allows for historical comparison.¹ The focus on wealth management in these three countries promotes the discussion of adapting digital financial services in an environment where mostly older wealth management clients are typically serviced personally by private bankers, with a strong client–advisor ...