Never before has the fundamental and social value of financial consultancy emerged above all for the growth of our country.

In one year, the share of managed savings has increased (today at 59% + 3%) compared to the liquidity in Italians’ current accounts (today at 41% – 3%).

The increase in the share of managed assets in the Italian portfolio is due to the market effect (performance effect of +2.4% according to ASSOGESTIONI) and the subscription of tens of billions of BTPs.

The reduction in liquidity in current accounts has a sad reason: in 12 months, inflation and the increase in rates on loans and mortgages have burned 152 billion of Italian families’ savings (source Centro Studi Unimpresa).

The good news is that thanks to BTPs, the percentage of Italians who financially invest their savings has grown by +2% in the last 12 months.

Managed savings suffered (-50 billion given Assogestioni), but also thanks to BTPs at least the money came out of the liquidity trap of interest-free current accounts.

36% of financial advisors and 49% of bank managers who took an active part in their proposition also contributed to the success of the BTPs.

The success of BTPs takes us back a few decades but has the merit of having awakened Italians to the issue of correct management of their savings.

The figure of the dedicated financial advisor proves to be central to this mission: the satisfaction of their customers is higher than that of non-dedicated bank managers (76% vs. 48%).

The market share of networks has grown in numbers over the last ten years: with a +165% of their customers’ assets compared to a +14% of the market.

The credit goes to trained professionals who know how to listen to their customers but also to an industry that leaves ample room for growth to the best and most enterprising, as demonstrated by three data points among many.

The first: only 17% of customers are able to talk about their life plans with the bank, and these are projects – maintaining their standard of living, supporting their children and parents – which can only be achieved with careful management of the own savings.

The second: 77% of Italians with an average balance of two hundred thousand euros in their current account have not heard from their bank manager for 12 months.

Third: 75% of Italians would be interested in having a single point of contact to manage their savings, insurance coverage and access to credit (mortgages, loans and business financing).

The room for growth is enormous, but only for those who know how to make listening, proactivity and monitoring the three pillars that support Italian families and businesses – protection, savings management and credit – their mantra.

Nicola Ronchetti

L'articolo THE VALUE OF CONSULTANCY proviene da Finer.

77% of Italians do not have a contact person for managing their savings, so much so that they concentrate them on the purchase of properties and liquidity in bank deposits.

The absence of a continuous dialogue with an expert for the management of one’s savings is equivalent to the lack of the possibility of concretely realizing one’s projects.

A third of the wealthiest customers – upper affluent or private – have a regular dialogue with their investment contact person, even, when this is a financial advisor, the percentage exceeds fifty percent.

The financial wealth of Italian families who rely on a CF or a PB grows on average more than those who do not use a professional.

An analysis of data from the last ten years highlights that from 2012 to 2022 the wealth of families who use a professional has grown on average by 165% compared to 14% of those who cannot count on a trusted contact person.

All this also has an impact in terms of economic and financial inequality, even if Italy is significantly better off than other European countries.

Based on the first results of the quarterly statistics of the Distributional Wealth Accounts conducted by the ECB and processed by the Bank of Italy, we are below the EU average for concentration of wealth, on the same levels as France and behind Germany which appears the country with the greatest degree of inequality in terms of net wealth.

Nonetheless, the 5% of the richest Italian families own 46% of the total net wealth, this is what we read in the analysis of the Bank of Italy: the less well-off families mainly rely on home ownership while the wealthier ones hold a more diversified portfolio in shares, deposits, policies.

The saving capacity of Italian families is still strong, 39% of Italians declare that they save without too much effort and 52% do not feel at peace if they do not save. The concept of saving is associated above all with two fundamental words: future and security.

To best manage your savings and convert them into profitable investments, trust in the banking, financial and insurance system is fundamental and must be fuelled with strong doses of financial education.

The wealthiest among the customers are also the most knowledgeable, it is legitimate to ask ourselves whether they are more knowledgeable because they are richer or whether they are richer because they are more knowledgeable.

In terms of impact on one’s wealth, the choice of the right contact person and one’s ability to discern on issues relating to the management of one’s financial assets account for 66%.

In other words, a profitable activity that allows you to accumulate significant assets weighs just over a third, so it is certainly a necessary but not sufficient condition for the assets to maintain their value over time and be passed down to heirs.

History teaches us how easy it is to squander large fortunes, perhaps built over many generations, the inability to choose the right contact person, one or more wrong investments can ruin assets accumulated over decades or even centuries of activity.

A good financial advisor and sound financial education can certainly help reduce economic inequalities.

Nicola Ronchetti

L'articolo CONSULTANCY ANTIDOTE TO ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES proviene da Finer.

The year that has just ended was exceptional for all banks: we witnessed a competition between bankers to see who could triumphantly communicate the achievement of the best profit ever.

All the banks – without exception – achieved – as they say among marathon runners – their personal best, i.e. the best personal time over the distance, achieving the best result ever.

A question arises spontaneously: but if in a marathon everyone improved their personal best, wouldn’t the path have been easier?

For the certification of a marathon route, there is an organization that establishes the average difference in altitude and the presence of curves: the time of someone who runs the Boston Marathon (among the hardest) cannot be compared to someone who covers the same distance along a straight downhill stretch.

There is actually a trick: with the cost of money skyrocketing, for those who, like the banks, have billions of customer money in cash, making money is child’s play between loans to customers (mortgages) and deposits in the ECB.

It is important to point out that there is nothing incorrect in all this, even more so considering that the banks, before the hangover from high rates, in the previous two years had to go through the gauntlet of sub-zero rates of the US banking crisis and the worsening of the geopolitical crisis.

The real issue is another, also hoping that the high interest rate situation will last until the end of 2024, imagining only some downward adjustments (– 0.5% in June) and that therefore the banks will be able to enjoy another exceptional year, what will happen next? Where will the banks’ profits come from with capped rates?

And here the biggest question ever arises: is it possible that in a country with a chronically under-insured population and with billions of savings deposited in interest-free bank accounts, there is no decisive and effective focus on protection and managed savings?

Rivers of ink have been written about why Italians don’t take out insurance; certainly, there is an issue of poor financial education, on which much can and must be done, but this is not the only barrier to correct financial and insurance planning.

The banking and insurance sector (if we want to make it unique) is, even if less than in the past, in debt of trust to the Italians, it requires new professionalism and certainly greater proactivity, all things that today seem to be rare commodities, if not in all, at least in most banks and insurance companies.

The real challenge for those banks and companies that want and know how to look beyond the short-term contingency, and therefore also the volatility of rates and markets, lies in having a medium and long-term strategy.

Banks that want to be successful in the future will have to look further in the direction of a sustainable and fair growth perspective for all stakeholders, which lies in uniting the three pillars that support Italian families and businesses in a single service model: protection, savings management and credit.

To do this, trained professionals are needed who know how to win the hearts, even before the wallets, of Italians, respecting everyone’s interests, customers first and foremost: from this point of view the road still appears long.

Nicola Ronchetti

L'articolo FINANCE AND PROTECTION proviene da Finer.

Wealth management is about to face a new renaissance for at least four reasons.

The first is that all over the globe we are inexorably witnessing a concentration of wealth, the wealthier individuals are increasing and the rich are becoming richer.

In Italy, where wealth is less concentrated than in other European countries, 5% of the population holds 46% of total wealth.

The second reason is linked to a cyclical factor, with the drop-in rates, asset management will resume its pace, temporarily slowed down by the BTP phenomenon.

In an interview given to Bloomberg TV by Carlo Messina on the occasion of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo declared that “one hundred billion euros of our clients’ assets can be converted into asset management products. This is a huge amount that will guarantee commissions.”

Essentially, all banks that are able to convert liquidity into managed savings and asset management will be able to benefit from an increase in profitability once interest rates begin to fall, making government bonds less attractive.

The third reason is that the management of a few customers with large portfolios is theoretically less complex than the management of many customers with small financial amounts: in the first case skills and credibility are needed, in the second greater investments in the industrialization of processes.

The private banking and wealth management sector also requires ever greater investments in the digitalisation of processes, but the banker or wealth manager whose role is central remains the one who makes the difference.

There is then a fourth reason why wealth management is a sector that all banks are looking at with growing interest, and that is customer loyalty and the consequent stability of the portfolio.

Private banks are better able than others to satisfy their customers and this allows for greater loyalty and stability of revenues compared to other more volatile customer segments.

Certainly, the ability to provide a good wealth management service is not for everyone and requires experience and some essential ingredients.

The first ingredient for the success of a wealth management service is the ability to count on the best professionals, enhancing and offering growth prospects to those already in the workforce and attracting the best talent.

Private banks have invested and are investing huge resources in growth, research and the ability to attract the best talent.

In the last five years, investments in private banker training have more than doubled, the opportunities for meeting with management, which are fundamental for strengthening motivation and esprit de corps, have increased tenfold, the growth in salaries in this segment is on average twice higher than that of the retail banking.

The second fundamental ingredient is that of innovation: the private banker or wealth management is the pivot of private banking, but cannot be successful if it does not have a bank behind it that significantly invests in processes, digital innovation and multi-channel.

While it is certainly incontrovertible that the relationship between private clients and private bankers is based on a personal relationship, it is equally true that to make this relationship as efficient as possible, it is more necessary than ever to reduce the inefficiencies linked to obsolete procedures that take away time and quality from the relation.

Digital innovation in private banking has struggled to take off in the past, when it was less simple and usable by the senior segments most represented in wealth management.

Everything has changed with the spread and greater use of touch screen technologies and smart phones even by the wealthiest individuals – typically less young.

And this also explains the success of digital native financial advisor networks in private banking and wealth management.

The third fundamental ingredient for implementing a private banking service is the ability to build teams of professionals with multidisciplinary and, ideally, multigenerational skills.

The need to master multiple disciplines that support the ability to manage financial assets and that include tax, inheritance, real estate and corporate issues is related to the articulation and complexity of the assets of the most well-equipped clients.

The fact that in addition to specific skills, the presence of professionals belonging to multiple generations is also useful in the team responds to the mirrored need to dialogue with different generations of customers: attitudes and languages ​​are almost always correlated to the different generational cohorts.

The fourth fundamental ingredient to be able to strengthen one’s position with the most well-equipped customers, converting liquidity into asset management, is the credibility and image of the bank.

This factor is often taken for granted, but equally often the investments to strengthen the brand value of a bank that wishes to target the wealthiest customers are not proportional to the objectives that the bank normally sets itself.

There are important exceptions represented by banks that invest in communication on traditional and digital media, which organize real road-shows in the area aimed at meeting hundreds of current and potential customers.

There are also banks that decide to change their name and therefore identity to better represent and intercept the needs of their customers and to acquire new ones.

One case above all is that of Mediobanca which gave its name to the former CheBanca! – which became Mediobanca Premier – precisely to enhance the DNA of a group and a brand synonymous with wealth management.

The re-branding operation follows a precise “One brand one culture” strategy which aims to strengthen the group’s wealth management also in the private segment as well as in the historically dominated HNWI segment.

The last factor necessary to compete and become increasingly attractive in the wealth management segment is linked to the size of the bank or group to which it belongs.

The reduction in margins and the increase in costs resulting from increasingly stringent regulations require economies of scale and therefore larger dimensions than in the past.

Size will matter more and more in private banking, there will be no alternative to internal growth, for already large banks, or to aggregation with other banks, for medium-sized banks.

More than in the past, size is an essential requirement for sustainable growth and therefore for the quality of wealth management.

Nicola Ronchetti

L'articolo WEALTH MANAGEMENT THE NEW RENAISSANCE proviene da Finer.

One hundred and thirty-five are the years that, according to the latest edition of the Global Gender Gap Report drawn up by the World Economic Forum, still separate us from full equality between men and women. In the same report, Italy is 79th out of 146 states monitored in terms of equality in 2023.

Another study “Italy’s best employers for women 2024” published by La Repubblica and carried out with the German Quality Institute, based on interviews with employees of Italian companies aimed at measuring business culture, professional training, equal opportunities, sees the first bank in the ranking in 75th position.

There still seems to be a lot to do to achieve the fundamental goal of making companies a place where gender equality is practiced on a daily basis.

TIM Telecom Italia Mobile has launched an advertising campaign, online these days, with the highly evocative title “Equality cannot wait”; the subject is represented by a man and a woman locked in a labyrinth, the man manages to get out easily while the woman has to break a wall with difficulty.

It is a fact that the topic has become more topical and that awareness-raising initiatives have grown, even if there is still a long way to go.

Something is moving in the right direction, as also emerges from the point of view of the private banking professionals that FINER involves annually in the PB Explorer research.

Two very interesting data emerge from the latest edition. The first data concerns the presence in the bank of initiatives aimed at bridging gender disparities such as salary disparity, hourly flexibility, work-life balance, career prospects and growth in the company.

In 2022, 46% of the private bankers interviewed declared the presence in their bank of initiatives aimed at bridging the gender gap, in 2023 this percentage rose to 77% (+31%).

The second data concerns satisfaction, again from the point of view of private banking professionals, with the successful outcome of these initiatives: in 2022 27% of those interviewed declared themselves completely satisfied, in 2023 the percentage grew to 34% (+7%).

Significant differences are also noted depending on the banks in which private bankers work: in large universal banking groups, satisfaction with initiatives aimed at reducing the gender gap is greater than in smaller banks.

According to those interviewed, the initiatives are therefore growing to a greater extent than their effectiveness. This is undoubtedly a process that requires time and a change of culture that cannot be improvised overnight.

The signals coming from private banking professionals are however positive and demonstrate that the topic is on the agenda of banks and private networks.

To date, female private bankers employed by banks represent on average 27% of the universe of private bankers, a higher figure than that of financial consultants with an active mandate (20%) and decidedly lower than the 46% of banking colleagues dedicated to the affluent customer segment.

The theme of female inclusion in the Italian financial consultancy sector has accompanied some of the most important appointments of Banca Fideuram: a female area manager has been appointed for the first time, among the 38 top managers appointed 19 are women.

The die has been cast and we hope that professional women no longer have to be forced to be the best in order to have the right to be equal.

Nicola Ronchetti

L'articolo PRIVATE BANKING AND GENDER EQUALITY proviene da Finer.

Taking stock of the past year and trying to predict what awaits us for the new year, it is inevitable to talk about managed savings and in particular about mutual investment funds and their future.

It is worth remembering that mutual investment funds have represented, since the early 1980s, the best form of democratization of investments: through them anyone could access a diversified investment, purchasing a share based on their availability.

In fact, in March 1983, law 77 came into being, establishing and regulating mutual investment funds. The first products invested mainly in monetary and bond securities, while shares did not exceed 15% of total managed assets and share funds represented just 1% of the entire stock market capitalisation.

Since then, it has been a succession of successes with the breakthrough of 2,000 billion AUM in 2017.

Today, forty years later, mutual funds seem to have entered a mid-life crisis. The outflows recorded in 2023 (around 40 billion equals to -1.7% on AUM), although largely contained compared to the horrible year 2008 (-25%), have slowed down.

The ability to generate value for subscribers will be fundamental to their recovery. The success of any product, whether financial or otherwise, is given by its ability to remunerate the entire chain of stakeholders: producer, distributor and – above all – the user, the final judge of its success or failure.

According to a recent study by the Bank of Italy based on an ESMA report, the annual costs of equity mutual funds in Europe are around 1.5% while for Italy this value rises to 2%.

In this context, the loss of position income can only be good for mutual funds and their managers, in a process of natural selection in which only the strongest and most capable will survive.

In this process, the so-called advanced consultancy will certainly have a leading role, if it is able to include and combine mutual investment funds with other solutions capable of remunerating the end customer.

In every market that has reached maturity, we move from the tailor-made solutions of the early days to an industrialized offer whose purpose is the search for the efficient frontier from at least two points of view.

The first point of view is the most noble one, so to speak, represented by Harry Markowits, who with his theory of the efficient portfolio revolutionized the approach to purchasing shares by giving primary importance to the relationship between risk and return.

According to the Nobel Prize winner, to compose an “efficient” portfolio, it is first necessary to identify a combination of securities capable of minimizing risk and maximizing return: the securities that make up a portfolio must be as little correlated as possible.

The second point of view, perhaps less noble, is that of the shopkeeper, who, when he sees the number of customers reducing, analyses the causes and finds solutions.

Combining the point of view of the shopkeeper with that of the Nobel Prize winner are two central aspects around which everything revolves: quality of the offer and price of the products.

There is no escape from the optimal relationship of this combination, unless you want to close up shop sooner or later.

Nicola Ronchetti

L'articolo THE FUTURE OF MUTUAL INVESTMENT FUNDS proviene da Finer.

The year that has just ended was an unforgettable year for financial advisors with the third best net inflows ever and 153,000 new clients.

In fact, the networks continued their journey by continuing to collect the savings of Italians, managed savings suffered, but less than in the past (-1.7% on net collection compared to -25% recorded in 2008).

So, what future awaits the world of financial consultancy?

It is interesting to see how financial advisors see in the next five years: 1) the future of their profession; 2) the future of their client; 3) their personal future.

As proof of the fact that 2023 was a particularly challenging year, these three indicators recorded a decline compared to 2022, but optimism remains high.

In particular, 72% of financial advisors see the future of the consulting profession as more positive (53%) or much more positive (19%) in the next 5 years.

81% of financial advisors see their client’s future in the next five years as more positive (60%) or much more positive (21%).

Finally, 77% of financial advisors see their professional future in the next five years as more positive (57%) or much more positive (20%).

Data is certainly more encouraging than for those who work in banks where the three indicators express much lower values: 38% optimistic about the future of the banking profession, 67% optimistic about the future of their bank and 55% optimistic about their own future.

Beyond the natural differences, there is no doubt that both the profession of financial advisor and that of bank manager are radically changing.

On the one hand, an empathetic, personalized and listening relationship with the customer is increasingly required and necessary, be it a mass market, affluent or private customer. On the other hand, the need to make processes increasingly efficient drives a strong standardization and industrialization of processes both in banks and in networks.

Perhaps precisely for these reasons, both financial advisors and bank managers are more optimistic about the future of their network or bank than that of their profession and ultimately of themselves.

There is a widespread perception that the changes underway will accelerate further in 2024 and that all professionals will have to rethink their way of working.

There are at least three challenges that financial consultancy professionals will have to face: 1) increase proactivity with clients on all fronts (savings management, protection and credit); 2) implement teamwork; 3) optimize costs for customers also thanks to new technologies.

These are challenges common to many sectors that are approaching maturity, where growth opportunities remain, but only for those who know how to identify them and seize them, knowing how to adapt to changes and not undergo them.

The figure of the free hitter is destined to disappear, we will increasingly work in interdisciplinary teams where generational differences will allow us to dialogue with the individual client but also with his children and grandchildren.

The objective is ambitious, to intercept the huge transfers of wealth estimated by AIPB at 180 billion euros by 2028, 300 billion by 2033, which will allow the threshold of 1,000 billion for financial advisors to be exceeded.

Nicola Ronchetti 

L'articolo THE OPTIMISM OF FINANCIAL ADVISORS proviene da Finer.

In 2004, the assets of the Italian asset management industry were 955 billion euros, twenty years later they grew by two and a half times, reaching over 2,300 billion euros.

For many, the year that has just ended was the worst ever with negative net collections of over 40 billion (-1.7% on AUM), nothing compared to 2008: collections were negative for over 200 billion (- 24% on AUM of 840).

Financial advisors have played a fundamental role in this resilient growth: in 1994 the networks introduced a wide selection of third-party products which guaranteed an open architecture offer for the first time in Italy.

From that moment on, nothing was the same as before: the enormous amount of savings of Italians attracted dozens of international asset management companies to our country. It didn’t seem true to the CF that they had such a broad and diversified offer, compared to the bankers who only offered “house” products and the bank’s structured bonds.

Then, as happens when you become passionate about something, we went from enthusiasm to euphoria: 3 SGRs on average in the portfolio in 2004, over 20 in 2023.

Considering that each asset management company offers on average 25 funds, each CF should know at least 500 products, be able to differentiate them and adapt them to the time horizon and risk profile of their customers.

After the season of open architecture, the season of guided architecture has arrived, both because the complexity of the market required it and to allow the TCs to focus on the relationship with the customer.

From this moment on, the weight of “gate keepers” or fund selectors within distribution increases and will increasingly have a decisive role in the selection and choice of asset management companies to work with.

The arrival of MIFID 2, the contraction of margins and attention to costs have revived the age-old dilemma: “make or buy?”.

Some of the most important distributors have focused more than in the past on “make”, which translated means greater weight given to in-house asset management companies and management delegated to third-party asset management companies.

The model that has held up over the last twenty years based on the direct placement of products is giving way to two alternative models.

The first is the model based on containers, “wrappers” composed of asset management and unit links, combining portfolio management, protection and tax optimization.

The second is that of fixed-fee “advisory” consultancy with multiple ingredients, active funds, ETFs, individual securities, investments in private markets and even government bonds.

The fundamental difference in both cases is the transition from product to portfolio consultancy, avoiding the risk of concentrations in specific asset classes, in some sectors and in a few investment themes.

The mantra of diversification guides the ongoing change and follows more or less slavishly what is happening in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The model based on product consultancy currently accounts for 70% and the one based on portfolio consultancy for the remaining 30%: but within a few years the ratios will reverse.

Evidence that the path is traced and that unless there are any upheavals we are moving in the direction of a “fee-based” model is the satisfaction of all stakeholders: final investors, consultants, bankers, banks, principals and asset management companies.

Analysing the satisfaction of the usual financial and private bankers, it emerges that on the front of advanced consultancy and savings management solutions, the networks most strongly unbalanced on the “wrapper” and “advisory” models excel over those mainly oriented towards the placement of products with retrocession .

Nicola Ronchetti 

L'articolo “2004-2024 TWENTY YEARS OF ASSET MANAGEMENT” proviene da Finer.

The latest CENSIS research with an extremely evocative title – “Blind before omens” – photographs an Italy which, although firmly anchored to the financial wealth of its families – five thousand billion euros – needs a turning point.

Again, according to the survey, almost 8 million fewer people of active age are estimated in 2050, with inevitable impacts both on the ability to generate value by the industrial and tertiary sectors and on the stability of the welfare system: at this rate in 2050 the public health spending could grow by 35%.

The study centre notes that “in the face of gloomy omens, the public debate stagnates, and the calm of some economic indicators is not able to fill the sails to take off. Sleepwalking as a figure of collective reactions to omens is not only attributable to the ruling classes, but is a widespread phenomenon among the silent majority of Italians”.

In fact, protection and complementary pensions in Italy seem to be words banned from collective debate, even more so among young people.

37.7% of young Italians are not interested in building a pension fund and 23.1% declare they are not familiar with the topic. (source: Bank of Italy survey carried out on a sample of over 5,000 boys and girls aged between 18 and 34).

The theme is who can rouse Italian families and above all within them the new generations of young people under 30 from this torpor.

Financial consultancy today has the great opportunity to bridge the gap between interest in the subject and actual knowledge, making the world of investments less complicated and more accessible to increasingly larger segments of the population.

Some comforting data on the topic comes from the Edufin International Observatory created by FINER for Pictet Asset Management and now in its third edition.

Interest in financial matters has in fact grown by 10% since 2021, leading this year to see the category of those who declare themselves not interested disappear, while 85% of the sample is very or somewhat interested.

Interest, however, which remains largely linked to the size of the assets, reaching the maximum for the wealthiest customers.

At an international level, the topics of saving and investment are increasingly central, as they are considered essential for realizing one’s life plans in all the countries covered by the study. In fact, interest in financial topics is growing everywhere compared to 2022, with France and Germany in line with Italy, Spain lagging behind and the UK above average.

It is essential to identify who has the task of educating: institutions remain in first place in all countries, especially in Italy and Spain where 48% identify the State and regulators as main agents; the only exception is the United Kingdom, where 30% believe it is the responsibility of financial advisors.

But schools and universities also play a role of growing importance as places of financial education, highlighting the need to raise greater and better awareness among the younger generations. In Italy, the introduction of financial topics in civic education school programs was favourably welcomed by 49% of the sample.

Valuable financial knowledge and advice will allow us to open our eyes and wake up from a dangerous torpor.

Nicola Ronchetti 

L'articolo FINANCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND ADVICE proviene da Finer.

Financial advisory expresses its added value when it includes a periodic monitoring of investment portfolios, an ongoing assessment of their adequacy in relation to the clients’ risk profiles, interaction with clients on the basis of the aforementioned profiles, the explanation of the reasons behind the investment advice provided and a possible revision of the portfolios.

This service, known as advanced advisory, has become the new mantra of financial networks and private banks.

In some cases, advanced advisory becomes even more advanced and incorporates other pillars of asset management such as insurance, credit, illiquid assets and, especially, real estate.

Advanced advisory is, in truth, an old concept, at least as old as the profession of financial advisor, which today finds expression in state-of-the-art platforms made available by banks and financial networks.

Indeed, advanced advisory is not exclusive to financial networks anymore; rather, it is offered by banks, which provide personalized advisory in several fields, namely investments, welfare, real estate, insurance, and inheritance.

Sometimes, advanced advisory takes the form of a paid adjustable offer: in this case, clients can add one or more optional components to the main component.

The added value of advanced advisory and the ability to make clients appreciate it are the strengths of this service. In this sense, payment becomes a proof of its value.

Moreover, advanced advisory represents such a large universe that it may incorporate administered savings including the beloved BTPs – i.e. long-term treasury bonds – which, in this case, are one of the ingredients of a composite e varied menu.

An analysis of the assets managed through advanced advisory highlights an increase by 25% over the past three years, a sign that the market trusts advanced advisory and that clients appreciate it.

Of course, advanced advisory has to be explained and enhanced in the eyes of the clients who are not satisfied with merely delegating the management of their wealth, but wish to contribute proactively in order to increase it, defining strategies together with their financial advisor, participating in strategic and tactical decision making to plan their investments in an optimal manner in the realm of the overall management of their wealth. 

The level of satisfaction with advanced advisory expressed by asset management professionals in Italy, that is bank employees dedicated to the affluent segment, financial advisors, and private bankers, tends to vary.

Financial advisors tend to share a higher level of satisfaction: for them, advanced advisory is no news; on the other hand, its recent declination in platforms accessible to all clients represents a novelty.

The level of satisfaction of private bankers employed by large private banks has increased compared to last year thanks to new innovations, new contents and the relation between costs and benefits for clients.

On the other hand, bank managers tend to be rather tepid: they struggle to make their clients, who are on average less wealthy, appreciate advanced advisory.

However, the die is cast, and soon advanced advisory will be within everyone’s reach.

Nicola Ronchetti

L'articolo FINANCIAL ADVISORY BECOMES EVER MORE ADVANCED proviene da Finer.