Add to the challenges facing wealth managers the possibility that they are misperceiving the motivations of their affluent clientele.
New research from Scorpio Partnership finds that whereas wealth managers tend to assume family comes first in matters of wealth creation and management, high-net-worth families give nearly equal weighting to family, civic duty and wider social issues in their approach to wealth creation.
When advisors focus on the individual client and consider social responsibility from the perspective of self and family first, "they may well be missing the whole person in front of them," the report said.
Scorpio in February surveyed 250 multi-millionaires in the U.S., Germany, Russia and the U.K. with an average wealth of $3.5 million. The findings were incorporated into the inaugural issue of the Kaiser Partner Special Report Series. Kaiser Partner is a wealth management firm based in Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
The research found—not surprisingly—that securing the family's financial well-being was the respondents' top priority, along with ensuring children shared family values.
But close behind were civic duties: operating within international law, conducting business fairly, obeying industry regulations and paying taxes.
And a desire to engage in activities that give something back to society had a nearly equal footing, the report said. These included engaging in civil society, investing ethically, environmental responsibility and charitable activity.
