Growing client mistrust and self-directed service offerings are forcing wealth managers to justify their fees. To cope with these pressures, advisors and wealth management firms are turning to technology to improve service and transparency, deliver service across various channels, and lower costs, according to a new survey report from Celent.

The survey was conducted online, and invitations went out to more than 200 individuals from more than 130 financial institutions in North America and Latin America. Celent collected 26 completed surveys from family offices, brokerages, retail banks, private banks, trusts, and independent investment managers. In addition, feedback from more than 20 firms was collected and used to provide general knowledge for the study.

Main findings of the study include:

•    The majority of wealth managers have indicated a change in strategy over the past 12 months.

•    Wealth managers are most commonly using a combination of third-party solutions and in-house technology.

•    Going forward, wealth managers are likely to focus on adding client communications tools, such as customer relationship management, client reporting tools, and client-facing tools.

•    Wealth managers are adding mobile applications for both advisors and end users, but are doing so slowly.

 “Wealth managers across all regions are focusing on giving advisors more tools to not only capture a full view of goals and assets, but also improve ways to inform clients. As a consequence, firms will continue to add CRM systems and client reporting tools,” says Isabella Fonseca, research director at Celent and coauthor of the report. “Furthermore, wealth managers are adapting to end user demand for more transparency and control by offering a variety of self-directed tools.”

In this report, Celent covers a broad range of topics within wealth management, including: overall strategy issues, technology implementation and spending, obstacles to implementing a wealth management platform, current services offered to investors, functionalities offered to advisors, and future priorities in wealth management IT spending.

http://www.celent.com/reports/wealth-management-it-spending