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The sharply advancing technology landscape has always been an opportunity and a challenge for private banks and wealth managers in Europe. But the COVID-19 pandemic has snowballed the industry’s adoption and usage of wealth management technology out of dire need. It is now obvious to even the most die-hard naysayers that digital is no longer an ancillary side strategy or business line within wealth management. It is firmwide, strategic, and an inseparable enabler of doing business. A new Aite Group report, Strategies to Enhance European Wealth Management in Uncertain Times, examines how financial institutions in Europe need to take a long-term view and shape their digital and operating agendas, and incorporate a business model that is fit for the uncertain future and profitable as well.
“The business impact of COVID-19 for several wealth managers in Europe has been negative, even though firms have managed to make a digitally led, largely remote business model work,” states Meghna Mukerjee, senior analyst at Aite Group. “Entering 2021, wealth managers are not only improving their client-facing digital platforms but also focusing on achieving an efficient operating model across the value chain—from prospecting to onboarding to ongoing client servicing—to successfully turn the best practices of this ‘new normal’ into a forever normal,” she explains.
This report explores the current and future strategic priorities of wealth management firms operating in or headquartered in the U.K. and mainland Europe several months into the COVID-19 pandemic. It is based principally on a quantitative survey of and ongoing dialogue with 20 wealth management practitioners in Europe at two points in time: August and September in both 2019 and 2020.
