Wealth apps: Improving the digital experience for your wealth management clients

By Javier Puga Chief Marketing Officer

Recent trends show that the digital experience in the wealth management industry needs to evolve to meet client expectations, particularly as younger generations come into wealth. For many firms, this means investing heavily in the experience of their proprietary applications.

Michael Foy, senior director of wealth intelligence at J.D. Power, summed up this reality well, saying:

“Wealth management firms that want to attract and retain younger investors need to focus on continuing to improve their apps. That’s true not just for do-it-yourself investors but also for those who work with a financial advisor. App users are engaging much more frequently with their brand and, when they have a positive experience, are also much more likely to recommend that brand.”

Digital transformation and the mobile app

Unlike any time before, so much of a firm’s ongoing success – in terms of client satisfaction and engagement – depends on a single touchpoint. Websites, of course, remain incredibly valuable platforms, seamless omnichannel experiences must always be present, and we should never downplay the importance of in-person interactions. Without adjusting for age demographics, 49% of wealth management clients still prefer in-person meetings.

But the ever-increasing popularity of mobile means that client perceptions and, by extension, firms’ reputations are strongly influenced by the quality of their apps and digital platforms. What’s more, this is only going to become more true as the Great Wealth Transfer continues.

When we look at millennials, J.D. Power found that 72% use their mobile app to access their account information for everyday banking. These are habits which will undoubtedly transfer to a wealth management context as they come into more wealth.

What makes a strong financial institution mobile app?

We’ve explored wealth management client expectations in detail before, but when it comes to mobile apps in particular there are two words to focus on: convenience and simplicity.

There is a reason that younger generations are more likely to trust BigTech firms such as Apple, Amazon, or Google as their primary investment organization. It comes down to the convenient solution that they are able to offer, being experts in data processing and client experience.

This concept of convenience and simplicity covers a number of user experience facets. Millennials and younger generations as a whole will expect to be able to use trading tools, gain real-time insights, track tax documentation, or more directly from their mobile app.

There is the increasingly popular feature of having all portfolios visible in one place, which is also going to become a characteristic of Swiss banking with the SBA’s “Memorandum of Understanding” to embrace the European PSD2 directive.

Importantly, however, in digital transformation simplicity and convenience cannot come at the expense of service quality. There is, at the very least, a common perception that innovative financial advisory products are fantastic – until you have a problem. Perhaps this is why 54% of investors between 18–25 don’t trust robo-advisors when the market becomes more volatile.

As a result, the perfect mobile app must have a strong balance between usability – i.e. convenience and simplicity – and access to personalized, human-led interactions.

Digital, human-led advisor interactions

When clients desire to speak with an advisor, they can be very particular in how they want to interact. For many, this will mean in-app interactions that mirror how they interact in real life.

Secure Messenger

In this context, a Secure Messaging app stands out as the ideal means of interaction as it allows the client to have an advisor in their pocket. Available in-app, Secure Messenger is a messaging solution that provides the convenience of popular apps like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp but is entirely secure and compliant with regulations.

Secure Messenger offers a number of features that enhance the digital experience. Not only does it allow for all the communication comfort that clients expect, but it is available behind secure areas, allows users to pick up the asynchronous conversations across devices, and has built-in conversation escalation capabilities.

Video Meeting

The first escalation capability is the video meeting, which can be accessed from the Secure Messenger channel or via a calendar link on another device. No matter where the client is located, they can access a secure, high-quality video call at a moment’s notice.

Co-Browsing

For more in-depth conversations that involve research, exchanging documents, investment strategy, or collaboration, the advisor can quickly trigger the Co-Browsing function. This allows them to offer secure, interactive side-by-side support without any downloads or plugins. It is like an in-person experience but in a fully digital environment.

Bot Sidekick

For the agent, Secure Messenger offers the ability to engage in asynchronous conversations – which allows them to better organize their time. However, there is still a substantial amount of work involved in research and writing engaged responses.

The Unblu Bot Sidekick is an Artificial Intelligence support tool that draws on LLM technology to offer instant, well researched responses. When used alongside human intelligence, it can dramatically increase efficiency while cutting down on the legwork associated with client management.

Convenience without compromise

When it comes to wealth management interactions using digital tools, the issue of secure access and compliance cannot be ignored. As advisors continue to pay large fines for regulatory noncompliance, the issue of offering the service that clients expect without subjecting yourself to risk becomes more pressing.

Alongside offering top-level security, Unblu also facilitates compliance by automatically recording all interactions and makes it easy to share documents in a safe, secure manner. It’s convenience without compromise that benefits both the client and the advisor.

What can strong client relationships achieve?

Offering robust digital channels and complementary collaboration tools directly from the app is more than a nice-to-have extra in digital wealth management. It fundamentally changes the way in which individual clients interact with their wealth management firm.

This is something that we can attest to first hand at Unblu from our own customers’ experiences. From what we’ve seen, convenient conversational engagement using digital solutions both increases client interaction and collaboration while simultaneously increasing front-office productivity by minimizing core activities.

Our own results demonstrate that enhanced client facing texting and messaging services can increase front-office productivity by 25% while boosting client-facing time by 5–10% through enhanced collaboration.

With easier access to meetings, dedicated spaces for focused client interactions, and increased reach beyond traditional boundaries, wealth managers are in a better position to scale AUM growth. What’s more, all of this can be achieved within a wholly secure environment that facilitates message recording for regulatory compliance.

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