With the sudden arrival of global lockdowns three years ago, organizations quickly discovered the risk of location dependence and had to act swiftly to simplify client engagement over the internet. This paved the way for an impressive acceleration in digital transformation. Cloud computing technology has been particularly influential in facilitating this trend, with the switch to the cloud allowing companies to offer location-independent services.

Earlier this year, the FCA announced plans to implement a new reform, Consumer Duty, with a view to setting higher standards of investor protection and engagement across the industry. This latest set of rules will be gradually integrated over the coming months, with Consumer Duty fully applicable from 31 July 2023.

Last week, 11 banks, including some of the largest global players, have agreed to pay more than USD 1.8 billion in fines over charges of failures in record-keeping practices and what the US regulator SEC called “pervasive off-channel communications”.

Traditionally, large asset managers offer their products through a B2B partner network. The industry is now moving towards serving investors directly, without intermediaries, through digital channels. How can financial institutions efficiently expand digital investment advice to new client segments?

In the second article of this series, we took a close look at the unique expectations that affluent people in the GBA (Greater Bay Area) have for their banks and wealth management firms and found that they are a complex mixture of the traditional and the modern. We now turn our attention to how executives targeting this market can manage to meet these demands profitably.

In the first article of this series, we looked at the vast scale of wealth creation taking place in the GBA (Greater Bay Area), and at some of Avaloq’s proprietary research that indicates how large the opportunity is for banks and wealth management firms to serve the people driving this growth.