A report has reveals that defending against cybersecurity threats, responding to COVID-19 customer expectations and improving customer experience are boardroom priorities for UK wealth managers.
The survey commissioned by Mobiquity and conducted by Censuswide of 100 wealth management executives in the UK, found that digital technologies are the key to responding to these challenges, improving client servicing and customer engagement. Over three quarters (79%) of wealth managers said that digital technologies have improved their customer engagement strategy and their experiences with clients (81%).
Meanwhile, over half (56%) of UK wealth managers reported increased client demand for digital products and services due to COVID-19.
UK wealth managers are taking advantage of a range of digital technologies to improve client servicing. Almost half (47%) are using a client wealth management dashboard on a mobile portal, over a third (36%) are using video conferencing, almost a third (32%) are using open banking, and under a quarter (24%) are using conversational chatbot AI.
Despite the benefits of using digital technologies in wealth management, the research found that barriers to adoption of ‘wealth tech’ still remain including privacy concerns (35%), risk and compliance (32%), technical issues e.g. software crashing, internet connectivity (31%) and technological implementation time taking too long (31%).
Commenting on the report, Matthew Williamson, VP Global Financial Services, Mobiquity, said: “The wealth management landscape has been ripe for digital disruption for some time. While challenges still exist in implementing digital technologies, the benefits outweigh the barriers. Recently, the sector has seen a paradigm shift, driven by changing client expectations, demographic changes, regulatory pressures and increased competition.
“It’s great that in the UK wealth managers are getting ahead of the curve when it comes to harnessing digital innovation, to improve client servicing and respond to customer demand driven by a COVID-19 environment. However, there’s still work to be done in embracing these technologies with under half of UK wealth managers implementing technologies in their everyday operations. Currently, only just over a third (36%) of UK wealth managers are using video conferencing once every 2-3 weeks and under a third (32%) are using Open Banking everyday.
“As wealth managers take advantage of technologies such as client wealth management dashboards, video conferencing and artificial intelligence, they must also ensure they have a robust security framework that keeps both company and customer data secure.”
