North American investors increasingly expect comprehensive and more personalized offerings from their financial advisors, with products that cut across wealth, insurance and banking and align with their values, according to research Accenture released Tuesday.
Accenture conducted an online survey in March and April among 1,000 investors across the U.S. and Canada who have a financial advisor. Respondents ranged in age from 20 to 93 and in personal wealth from less than $250,000 to more than $10 million.
What Investors Want
As for financial advisors, they have gotten better at providing hybrid advice that combines digital, virtual and human interaction, but they may not be as effective in delivering the right advice and products at the right time for investors, the report said.
This is especially true for Generation Xers, millennials and Gen Zers, whose advice needs and preferences differ from those of baby boomers. Consider one example from the study results: 97% of Gen Zers, 91% of millennials and 85% of Gen Xers expect their advisor to offer banking and insurance products, compared with only 47% of boomers.
Younger investors are also likelier to be interested in products that align with their lifestyle preferences, including sustainability. The three groups of younger investors were more than twice as likely as boomers to have asked their advisors about environmental, social and governance or socially responsible investments.
Eighty-four percent of respondents who asked about sustainability investments plan to purchase them in the next year, the study found.
The research also shows that investors want their advisors to provide more personalized advice that covers all aspects of their financial portfolios.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said the advice they receive is too generic, including 50% of those with personal wealth between $250,000 and $1 million. Another 55% think that they could do a better job investing themselves. And 56% consider a wealth offering that includes advice, risk protection and lending products essential.
"Our research findings show that investors expect a deeper level of engagement with their advisor that goes beyond pure portfolio management," Scott Reddel, leader of Accenture's wealth management group in North America, said in a statement.
"The wealth managers who thrive in the years ahead will embrace AI, data and analytics and cloud-computing to power their advisors with the intelligence and tools to offer holistic, personalized and integrated wealth advice."
