Wealthy investors in Europe are demanding that financial managers upgrade their technology so that their customers’ money can be managed using digital tools.
Despite having a higher average age that other investors, some 87% of rich investors claimed they were already using digital technology in their interaction with financial services, whilst two-thirds reported they were active on social media every week.
Owen Jelf, managing director at Accenture Capital Markets, which ran a survey, said: "Our findings did not align with conventional wisdom, which paints high-net-worth investors as merely casual users of digital services, generally reluctant to invest digitally and reliant on advisors for wealth management.
"On the contrary, their responses were similar to those that we got from younger investors, although high-net-worth investors tend to prefer going online using their PC rather than mobile devices."
Accenture reported that whilst rich investors prefer face-to-face meetings, they will use digital technology for account transfers, product research, scenario analysis and other basic tasks.
Three-quarters of the survey respondants expressed confidence that the use of digital technology would not diminish contact in person with financial advisors.
Whilst two-thirds said they still wanted such face-to-face time, the rest said they would be able to work with a financial advisor remotely.
"High-net-worth investors are very savvy about using digital channels and see digital as an essential part of the service they expect from a private bank or financial adviser," said Alfredo Avila, managing director for Accenture Wealth and Asset Management Services EMEA and Latin America.
"And while the majority still want face-to-face contact, they are much more comfortable and confident in the value digital technologies bring to managing their portfolios and communicating with their advisors."
