Our latest whitepaper, “The quest to become the best – becoming the trusted wealth coach and adviser”, is a part of our WealthTech Insight Series (WTIS), and was developed in partnership with Ortec Finance. The paper focused on identifying the role of technology in supercharging the adviser’s capabilities and becoming the client’s trusted wealth coach.

This article provides a summary of the third section of the research, which focuses on the process of creating long-term goals for clients and how that relates increasing to client engagement and trust.

Key points:

• Goals-based planning is considered vital to the overall offering.
• The quality of the investment planning relies heavily on having already established long-term goals to fulfil.
• Effective goals-based planning results in a deeper relationship where the client feels looked after over the long term, and is less likely to worry about short-term volatility.
• Being able to trust in the adviser’s ability to form goals and effectively plan around them is what clients ultimately want.

Interested in reading the research? You can read and download the whitepaper here.

The third section of the white paper found that defining end goals is essential in order to create plans to fulfil those goals. Indeed, clients will often have the broad aim of getting ‘good returns’, so advisers need to define parameters around that;  how much do they want to invest? What is the risk appetite? What will the wealth be used for?

Clients’ goals vary significantly; some want to retire in comfort, whereas, towards the top of the wealth scale, there is more of a focus on succession planning and other tertiary activities that go beyond the remit of investment planning and returns.

Overall, respondents found that clients find financial planning satisfactory and thatengagement in the process also drives resilience, pragmatism, and better understanding that when there are bumps in the road – a well-put-together plan with some pragmatic views around variation and returns will work well over the long term.

However, it was pointed out that many investors tend to worry about factors outside their control, so establishing trust in the adviser and their capability to draw out the goals, purpose, and intention, and then create a realistic and robust long-term plan is a must.

One of the participants said: “If you are doing both coaching and planning, then the relationship is deeper, and both sides get more out of it. You get a much richer conversation if you deal with one person in a firm for both elements. That is becoming increasingly important in the context of gaining the client’s trust, retaining their business, upping share of wallet, and getting the client to be your advocate.”

Interested in reading the research? You can read and download the whitepaper here.

About the WealthTech Insight Series
This research is part of our WealthTech Insight Series (WTIS), an ongoing and developing research process mixing online surveys and interviews. It focuses exclusively on technology in the wealth management sector across the world. Rather than a one-off research process, the WTIS will seek to build an ongoing programme of research among wealth managers of different types across the world on a broad range of technology and related topics. The aim is to build up an aggregated knowledge base of both qualitative views and perspectives as well as quantitative data points.

Research partner
Ortec Finance is a leading global provider of technology and solutions for risk and return management, enabling wealth managers and banks to manage their clients’ investment decisions. It models and maps the relevant uncertainties to help them monitor clients’ goals and decisions.

Founded by leading experts in the fields of econometrics and technology, we have, in over 40 years, achieved an outstanding reputation built on reliability. With over 500 clients in over 20 countries, it plays a vital role in helping our clients improve investment decision-making and manage uncertainty. Headquartered in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, the firm also have offices in Amsterdam, London, Melbourne, New York, Toronto, and Zurich.

More information is available here.