The outlook for wealth managers should feel rosy, in theory. After all, the demographics of wealth are promising. Consider: In 2018, the global ultra-wealthy population with net worth of >$30M rose to 22.4 million people [i] Global wealth management assets under management (AUM) is set to double by 2020 to $145T [ii] By 2020, women…

A modern back-office could save wealth management firms millions of dollars. But, in the rush to equip advisors with the best digital technologies, the back-office is sometimes neglected. I advise my clients to focus on both. The savings generated by modernizing back-office operations could help fuel customer-facing transformation. Accenture research tells us that by 2020,…

Accenture’s latest analysis, our Capital Markets Vision 2022, shows a highly diverse picture of investment bank performance and outlook. Yes, the top four investment banks (all generating above $20bn in revenue and all US domiciled) are creating significant economic profits and thus shareholder value. And yes, profitable niches do exist further down the scale for…

Today, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that rely solely on artificial intelligence (AI) to make investment decisions are readily available. Quant hedge funds have been prevalent in the industry for years. And the widely-held view—as reflected extensively in our Capital Markets Vision 2022—is that AI and machine learning will continue to have a big say in the…

Canada’s wealth management landscape continues to transform. I see increased eagerness from clients to discuss the ‘New’, with them initiating conversations that used to require my coaxing. This results from the usual suspects: market and consumer forces, as well as digital technology disruption. From changing investor demographics and preferences, to the rise of digitally native…

Last year, I wrote about how Private Equity (PE) firms were using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to drive investment returns – the key takeaway being that the PE industry was still far behind in terms of AI maturity, primarily due to structural reasons including limited data availability, long hold periods for assets, and non-recoverability of costs…