In Asia, the wealth of affluent and mass-affluent customer segments is growing rapidly, bringing about new opportunities and growth prospects for banks and wealth managers alike in the region. But to tap into this opportunity, services providers will need to embrace technology and digital platforms to not only provide customers the services they expect, but also gain in productivity and efficiency, a new report by global consultancy McKinsey says. The report, titled Digital and AI-enabled wealth management: the big potential in Asia and released on February 02, looks at the region's fast growing household wealth and shares how wealth managers can capture this opportunity by embracing data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce costs, increase access for their clients and improve customer experience across the entire lifecycle. In 2021, the wealth pool of households with investable assets of US$100,000 to US$1 million in Asia totaled US$2.7 trillion. That sum is projected to soar to US$4.7 trillion by 2026 as incomes continue to rise across the region, the report says.

This article was provided by Broadridge Financial Solutions. In an industry that is historically characterized by legacy technology, wealth management firms in Canada and around the world now have access to a growing array of sophisticated technology solutions that harness the power of data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). As investors increasingly demand a high-touch, digital-first experience amid unprecedented market volatility, these technology capabilities are opening up new growth opportunities for wealth managers enabling them to provide advice and content at the right time via the right channels. The benefits of these new technologies kick in for investors and advisors alike even before a client becomes a client. Wealth managers can use data analytics and other technologies to gain insights into the habits and preferences of prospective clients in order to ensure that they are paired with clients are most closely aligned with their approach and values.

The wealth management business has traditionally been late to adopt new technology, primarily because of caution about security. It took nearly a decade for firms to trust putting data in the cloud. Today, many other industries are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to improve processes. The wealth management industry is still using processes that are tedious and manual. But that is about to change.

This has heightened the need for wealth management firms to embrace technology, including artificial intelligence, to arm their advisors with data and tools that will improve the quality of advice and how it is delivered. And yet when it comes to exploring AI to help advisors onboard new clients and provide more relevant advice to existing ones, most firms are stuck in low gear, with few putting the technology at the core of their business. Indeed, less than one-third of the wealth managers we surveyed are scaling AI across their businesses. Part of the problem is getting buy-in and engagement from financial advisors who need convincing that insights created by AI will be actionable in their day-to-day roles. In some instances, recommendations provided by AI don't match clients' immediate needs or stages of life.

While the customer needs change in the wealth management sector, the adoption of digital technologies has remained slow. A new generation of customers are now joining the market, and their needs are influenced by new technologies. Wealth managers need to provide faster and more convenient services with a digital experience in a more volatile and uncertain environment created by the Covid-19 pandemic. McKinsey states that wealth management firms can not overcome these challenges without digital transformation. This article explores 4 key digital technologies transforming the wealth management sector.

Wealth Tech (Technology) companies have rapidly spawned in recent years. Cutting-edge technologies are making their way into almost all industries from manufacturing to logistics to financial services. Within financial services, technologies such as data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning among others are leading the way in changing business processes with faster turnaround time and superior customer experience. As technology evolves, business models must be changed to remain relevant. The wealth management sector is also not insulated from this phenomenon!

Accenture interviewed 100 C-suite executives in wealth management last year and found many are skeptical of artificial intelligence. Eighty-five percent said its impact is "more hype than reality for businesses today." Still, 60% of them are already using AI in their organizations and they're doing it so well that other industries could learn from them, according to a new report. "Understanding the application of AI to business requires an understanding of context -- strategy, customers, company culture, and so forth. One application worthy of study across organizations is wealth management," Babson College professor Tom Davenport and NewVantage Partners founder and CEO Randy Bean, wrote in the MIT Sloan Management Review.

"Customer experience is chief among the areas where traditional financial institutions have fallen short. Not long ago, wealth management was considered a service almost exclusively confined to the affluent. With their millions at the ready, wealthy investors could use wealth managers to provide a range of tailored investment-related services, and those services would normally come at a high price. But these days, such a perception of wealth management is becoming old, or simply not accurate. Innovation broke down those barriers of exclusivity, enabling services that were previously only accessible to the privileged few to be in the hands of the masses of ordinary investors. Wealthtech falls under fintech as a segment which specifically focuses on technology that aims to transform wealth management and retail investment. It involves the application of digital solutions to wealth management, ultimately providing new channels to deliver more efficient, cost-effective and efficient ...

The usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been raised throughout the world from smart devices to the well-known Siri application on Mac gadgets; AI is everywhere, even though wealth management and the finance field follow a more conventional path, which does not mean that they are exempted from such trends. The latest integration for AI is Robo Advisory in Wealth Management. While some may be apprehensive about such science-fiction tactics to the financial system, those robots have the strength that transforms into a wealth management approach. Moreover, AI robots are increasingly being used by the millennial generation to maximize their investment returns and tackle diverse financial requirements effectively. By utilizing this fintech strategy, advisors and wealth managers can look forward to creating accurate financial plans for their clients while delivering stellar service.

The artificial intelligence space is increasingly competitive with new AI companies and products being developed every day. Every industry is getting more and more crowded with products from startups and from established companies. Although there are unique considerations for adopting AI in the enterprise, the fundamentals of going to market with an AI product are the same no matter if a company is a large, established corporation or an AI startup. Both will face similar challenges in developing a winning product and marketing it toward an audience that wants to buy it, be they existing customers at a bank or large banks themselves. Emerj works with AI startups and large companies that want to be known for AI in order to create winning sales collateral that appeals to their buyers and generates more pipeline by reaching our audience of dedicated AI-focused business leaders.