Customisation is king for Asia’s empowered investors

In recent years, stand-out retail and luxury brands have cultivated a loyal customer following by perfecting the art of mass customisation. If you want a pair of new trainers, NIKEiD lets you design them for yourself. If you would like a new perfume, Cologne Atelier can help you create a personal scent. Search for a song on Spotify, or a new box set on Netflix, and you will find playlists and programmes that feel as if they have been designed with you in mind.

Across industries, customer intelligence platforms are enabling sellers to re-fashion themselves as advisers. While customers’ immediate needs are met by the product on sale today, long-term loyalty can be extended by the way in which personal data is subsequently used. The preferences and digital behaviour of millions of buyers are used to directly inform the development of new products, and as a consequence, these platforms begin to understand you well enough to make recommendations for what you will like next.

HNWIs in Asia-Pacific are not immune to these developments. Having experienced the benefits of customisation in their personal lives, many investors are accordingly scaling up their expectations of their wealth management relationships. Scorpio’s recent research on behalf of BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking found customisation is a key demand of a new client profile defined not by demographics, but by drive. We call this clientele ‘empowered investors’, because they actively seek more involvement in decision-making around their investments through closer collaboration with their advisers.

What degree of customisation would you like in each of the following parts of your experience with a financial adviser?

Scorpio examined the perspectives of more than 1,000 HNWIs across eight of Asia’s financial hubs: Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. When asked to outline their vision of the ideal private bank, more than half reflected the desires for customisation and self-service that typifies this new mindset. Moreover, such attitudes are particularly prevalent among ultra-high net worth investors.

Personalised portfolio information is the clearest starting-point, with many clients looking for their own data to be accessible and more usable. Across seven of the eight markets, having access to tailored investment data is considered more important than having access to products or fees that take into account individual investor preferences. Chinese clients are most advanced in their expectations.

There are a range of other changes wealthy Apac clients want to see enacted across the investment journey: 

1: Goals

HNWIs believe advisory meetings should become more focused. Fifty-five per cent would like to use them to review progress towards their investment objectives and plan for the future. Wealth managers should think about whether their current delivery model provides enough transparency about investment performance ahead of meetings so both sides can come prepared to discuss goals.

2: Platform 

For many investors – particularly in Singapore and Taiwan – the dream client portal would incorporate tools that permit better independent execution, such as portfolio performance analysis and financial research. But before investing in this type of functionality, advisers need to question whether more fundamental client needs are being met. For example, most investors prioritise the understanding of their own investment position, with 62 per cent saying they simply want a clear portfolio overview on the homescreen of their main investment platform.

3: Communication

Asia’s investors have advanced expectations around instant communication with their advisers. Many have opened up the channels they use in their personal lives, like WhatsApp and social media, to secure rapid responses to their professional questions too. These channel preferences also have implications for how wealth managers can most effectively communicate important market updates: clients expect to be able to pick and choose relevant insights instantly and on-the-go.

Empowered investors are an exciting clientele. They are highly engaged and committed to working more collaboratively with their advisers. At the same time, there is no doubt they pose a challenge to Asia’s wealth industry, which must show it can continue to deliver value to clients – even when their expectations are being set by brands in other sectors.

If there is one mantra we hear time and again from the industry, it is that ‘bespoke service’ is key to long-lasting relationships. It is therefore time Asia’s wealth managers start listening to what kind of customisation their clients actually want.  

Tasha Vashisht is senior manager at wealth management think-tank Scorpio Partnership