The past five years have been great for client acquisition according to new survey, but there's more to come
The past five years has seen a strong wave of clients for Canada’s wealth professionals, but things are looking positive for the next few years too.
Following exponential growth since the end of the last decade, a survey of wealth managers and financial advisors managing a collective $370 billion of client assets reveals expectation that further escalation of client acquisitions is ahead.
More than 9 in 10 respondents to the Ortec Finance poll said they have increased the number of clients that they have personally serviced in the past five years with 14% seeing a significant rise.
The research shows that more than half of wealth professionals polled are anticipating growth of at least 20% in the next 3 years and 46% think their client base will rise by up to 20% with 8% expecting a 30-50% increase.
Driving the growth
The optimism is driven in part by investment in technology, which enables advisors to service more clients more effectively.
Four in ten poll participants said that technology has helped them improve their value proposition with a similar share saying it’s boosted their client-centric approach to wealth management.
But technology is not the only positive influence for the expected growth in client acquisition. An increased mass affluent and high-net-worth populations is seen by two thirds of respondents as a key driver.
Among the firms that are excelling at attracting and retaining clients are Wealth Professional’s best 5-Star Wealth Advisory teams in Canada which have been revealed this week.
Industry challenge
Ronald Janssen, managing director of goals-based planning at Ortec says that the strong demand for wealth managers and financial advisors, is good news but adds pressure to firms.
“While this is extremely encouraging, it also brings new challenges in terms of having the right skills, experience and technology in place to provide more clients with the best possible service. Next to that also regulations around suitability are evolving,” he said. Investing in appropriate, scalable technology is vitally important to ensure that advisors can effectively manage more clients in line with regulations and deliver more value by using a goals-based Investing approach.”
