Vijay Raghavan

David Bowie’s classic song “Golden Years” tells us to “look at that sky, life’s begun.” But retirement’s “golden years” are looking less golden for Americans. Forrester data indicates that many Americans are willing to work past the age of retirement or even work a part-time job in retirement to supplement their income.

To assess how well brokerage firms acquire customers looking for self-directed investment accounts, we recently kicked off our first investing sales Forrester Digital Experience Review™. We will evaluate the functionality and user experience of 13 North American websites that target self-directed investors.

Wealth management firms must still balance the innovation AI offers with the oversight and governance expected from regulators. As AI continues make inroads in wealth management, it’s important for firms to use explainable AI tools that provide trust, transparency, and explainability to “black box” AI systems.

The wealth management industry will once again see the rise of new and old forces that will confuse, help, and hinder investors. Savvy, forward-thinking managers will detect clear signals amid the noise.

Impact-Oriented Investors Are Waiting For A Reason To Take The Plunge Data from Forrester’s Financial Services Benchmark Recontact Survey, 2022, found that 15% of US online adult investors own sustainable investment products — a group we call “sustainable investors.” They are younger, wealthier, and more educated than the average investor. But wealth managers should also […]

To assess the digital experience, we reviewed the functionality and user experience of 12 North American mobile investing apps that target self-directed investors, and we provide an Excel-based tool that allows digital business leaders to evaluate their customers’ digital journeys.

While recently listening to Daft Punk, pondering the increasing influence of AI on wealth management, and thinking about my latest research on The Top Emerging Technologies In Wealth Management, 2023, I decided to let the robots do all the work.

Wealth management firms with both digitally savvy financial advisors and digital financial advice will be best suited to win over skittish investors and convert them into profitable, long-term customers.

Women are investing in plain sight. But to look at the numbers, you would think that wealth managers can’t see them. Fewer than half of online women in the US are investors, compared to 60% of online men. Those who do invest also tend to have fewer and less varied investment products than men. To […]

Digitally savvy delegators are an overlooked segment and represent an attractive opportunity for wealth management firms right now. As incumbents and fintechs alike continue to compete for customers, firms need to understand who digitally savvy delegators are and design the right solutions to attract and retain them. I recently published a report about this customer […]

Amid massive market volatility and uncertainty, two investment firms were able to vault up the rankings in the Forrester US CX Index 2021. Discover how, and why they'll have a competitive advantage going forward.

Significant gaps continue to exist in private banking, forcing firms to rethink pricing and organizational models. As a result, high-net-worth clients are not fully benefiting from some of the digital innovations that are changing how customers interact with their private banks. To identify the top “Global Private Banking Trends In 2021,” we interviewed senior executives […]

Why You Need A New Segmentation Approach To Understand Today’s Investors Wealth management firms commonly segment their clients by investable assets. But this is not enough to help firms decide on new products and services or optimize customer engagement models. Self-directedness is a crucial dimension that reliably predicts many investor attitudes and behaviors (see Figure […]

It’s a story straight out of the Sherwood Forest, with a stopover in Holland. A determined group of small investors have used the power of social media to punish “the smart money” by pushing the price of GameStop, a widely shorted stock, from $19 to $325 (as of this writing). As the saga continues to […]

We’ve seen technology shift the wealth management landscape for years. The global pandemic accelerated that shift as clients seek new ways to access their accounts, communicate with account managers, and manage their investments. To identify “The Top Wealth Management Technology Investments In 2021,” we interviewed more than 80 companies to determine which technology initiatives they […]

Consider Spending Changes In Five Categories Post-COVID-19 Wealth management leaders know that the business effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be with us for years. However, the consequences of the pandemic are not identical for all companies. Different industries, including wealth management, face disparate consumer trends, resource availability, and revenue potential during the pandemic and […]

The events of 2020 exposed both weaknesses and opportunities for wealth management firms. In 2021, forward-thinking firms will not only meet these challenges, but will move beyond them.

The wealth management industry is undergoing a digital transformation, and firms are turning to digital wealth management platforms (DWMPs) to accelerate their initiatives. In “The Forrester Wave™: Digital Wealth Management Platforms, Q1 2020” report, we identified the 13 most significant digital DWMP providers, which we evaluated across 26 criteria. We define a DWMP as: An […]