According to a study conducted worldwide by Ernst and Young (EY), around 23 percent of clients in the Middle East are mulling over the option of changing their financial advisers over the next three years, as against 32 percent across the globe.
This comes close on the heels of about half of the clients in the region having already shifted their assets in the past three years.
At present, a quarter of the customers in the region obtain advice on monetary matters through mobile applications as per EY’s Global Wealth Management Research 2020 survey of 2,000 clients conducted across 26 countries.
Although the worldwide scenario has been quite constant, investors in the Middle East have exhibited a lesser desire to shift their assets as against merely three years ago.
Speaking on this emerging development, Sarah Sanders, MENA wealth and asset management leader at EY, said that despite the fact that the shifting of assets in the Middle East would reduce in the forthcoming years, there still persists a great chance for wealth management organisations to entice the client base in the region.
She went on to say that while customers are ready to pay for financial counsel, the fact that what they value is changing drastically. EY described that wealth management clients are prone to reassess and shift their assets amid significant milestones occurring in their lives.
In the Middle East, 75 percent of customers shift their finances when commencing a new business venture, 73 percent do the changes when purchasing a residence and 60 percent of the clients review their monetary counsel when they are acquiring a family share of property.
She added that wealth management organisations have to figure out at what point of time the customers contemplate to change their assets, the causes that lead them to do so and the credentials they stack up against a prospective service provider.
The clients in the Gulf are drifting away from conventional financial adviser firms such as private banks and fund managers. Almost half (48 percent) of them are contemplating to change over to brokerage companies while 40 percent prefer independent counsel.
The main causes that can be attributed to the shifting of monetary counsel are standard of service, brand value, counsel prowess, individual attention, technology and costs.
Sanders concluded by saying that with the advent of digital options that provide 24/7 services on any device being increasingly available, 20 percent of customers in the Middle East would definitely opt for such a facility.