Communication
Visibility as strategy: Why banks and asset managers must rethink communication.
When wealth management and asset management talk about digitalisation, they usually mean processes: more efficient onboarding journeys, automated reporting, AI-assisted portfolio analysis. That is not wrong, but it falls short. The deeper change does not occur in the back office but in perception. How banks and asset managers are seen, how they communicate, whom they address and whether they still count as relevant at all: these are the questions that decide future viability. And it is precisely there that a widening gap has opened in the industry.
Trust is no longer a given
Traditional financial institutions long lived off institutional trust. The brand stood for solidity, the relationship for continuity, size for security. That capital still exists, but it is no longer transferred automatically. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2024 shows that the financial sector ranks globally among the least trusted industries, with marked declines particularly among younger cohorts. Trust today arises not through presence alone but through relevance, consistency and perceptible stance.
Once, a financial institution’s brand was the building, the letterhead, the recommendation in the network. Today it is the first Google hit, the adviser’s LinkedIn profile, the podcast the daughter sends her father. Brands are built less through advertising primarily than through communication, through content, through stance in public. Anyone not visible there simply does not exist for a growing share of relevant target groups.
The next generation inherits, but it switches too
The generational transition in wealth is well known in the industry. Its communicative implications are often underestimated. According to the UBS Global Family Office Report 2024, roughly USD 84 trillion is expected to change hands over the next two decades, the largest transfer in history. A substantial part will flow to millennials and Generation Z.
This generation behaves differently as clients. They research digitally and in depth before the first conversation. They assess credibility via content, not titles. They expect transparency on processes, values and positioning. And they switch more often: a study by Cerulli Associates finds that roughly 70 per cent of heirs change their parents’ wealth manager after inheritance. The main reason is not dissatisfaction with performance but lack of relationship and lack of relevance in their own lifeworld.
Anyone who does not already treat the next generation as an audience, and address it, loses them not only at succession but beforehand.
Digital visibility is not a marketing topic
A stubborn misconception in the industry is to treat digital communication as a marketing task to delegate to a department or an agency. In fact it touches positioning, distribution and leadership alike.
Research on digital decision-making shows that prospective wealth-management clients typically pass through seven to twelve digital touchpoints before seeking a first conversation. Trust-building begins long before first contact, in a digital space where the institution is either present and compelling or not. McKinsey, in its Global Wealth Management Survey 2023, found that clients satisfied with their provider’s digital offering show materially higher readiness to stay and use additional services.
Digital visibility does not mean social-media activism. An adviser with a clear LinkedIn profile and regular expert posts is more discoverable than one without. A website that communicates positioning, philosophy and expertise clearly builds more trust than one that chiefly mirrors service catalogues. An institution that takes a public stance on relevant topics is perceived as more competent than one that stays silent.
Branding is not advertising
In finance, branding is often equated with paid visibility. That shortcut can be costly, because branding means something different: coherent communication of what an institution stands for, what distinguishes it and which clients it aims to reach.
Science documents this link well. A study by Bain & Company shows that in financial services a five-percentage-point increase in client retention can raise profit by 25 to 95 per cent, and that brand strength is one of the key drivers of that retention. PwC, in its 2023 global wealth management report, found that 73 per cent of wealthy clients factor reputation and perceived expertise into provider choice, ahead of fee structures and product range.
Strong wealth-management branding emerges from three factors: consistency of communication across channels; substance of content perceived as expertise; authenticity of positioning that credibly fits the actual offering. Many institutions communicate inconsistently, without substance or with interchangeable positioning. “Individual, discreet, high-performing” could describe almost any provider. Clear positioning cannot.
Personalisation and the myth of the digital mass market
It is often assumed digital communication must be impersonal. In reality digital channels enable a level of tailoring that analogue mass marketing never could.
Salesforce, in the State of the Connected Customer Report 2023, reports that 73 per cent of customers expect to be addressed as individuals, not as part of a crowd. In wealth management, where relationships are individual by definition, that expectation is especially pronounced. Well-implemented CRM systems, segmented content strategies and channel-specific communication make it possible to reach different client segments with content that fits: the entrepreneur building wealth as well as the next generation in a transfer phase.
Without a clear segmentation strategy, even the best personalisation tooling dissipates.
Communication as competitive advantage
In a market shaped by consolidation, declining margins and rising regulatory requirements, communication becomes one of the few genuine differentiators. Products are increasingly comparable. Fees face pressure. Returns depend on market developments no one fully controls. What remains is perceived relationship quality, and relationships today begin with communication.
A study from Harvard Business School shows that customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand can have roughly twice the lifetime value of those who are merely satisfied. In wealth management, where relationships run for decades and referrals are a key growth driver, that effect is especially pronounced.
Communication is investment in visibility, trust and relevance, hence in the foundations on which client relationships arise and endure.
What follows
The digitalisation of communication in wealth and asset management is not a question of if but how. Some institutions have understood this and invest in clear positioning, consistent content, digital visibility and targeted outreach to the next generation. Many others are still waiting.
Anyone who builds no relationship with the next generation today will not be present for the largest wealth transfer in history. Anyone who communicates no clear stance is perceived as interchangeable. Anyone who treats digital communication as a downstream marketing task instead of a strategic priority gives away one of the few competitive advantages still to be won in this market.
Visibility today is no longer a by-product of good work alone. It is a capability in its own right that must be planned, built and maintained.
Sources: Edelman Trust Barometer 2024. UBS Global Family Office Report 2024. Cerulli Associates, "U.S. High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets". McKinsey, Global Wealth Management Survey 2023. Bain & Company, "Customer Loyalty in Financial Services". PwC, Global Wealth Management Report 2023. Salesforce, State of the Connected Customer 2023. Harvard Business School, "The Value of Keeping the Right Customers".