Clients ‘extremely happy’ with wealth managers – survey

People are pretty happy with the way their money is being managed. This was the finding in the survey used by Intellidex to judge its 2019 Top Private Banks and Wealth Managers Awards.

The research group has been conducting this survey since 2012 as a way to find the “top players in various categories of the wealth management and private banking sectors”.

PSG was named top wealth manager in the category for large financial institutions, while NFB Private Wealth Management was named top boutique wealth manager of the year. The top private bank award went to Investec Private Bank.

The survey found that on the whole people are very happy with the performance of the people who manage their wealth.

It found, for instance, that 64% of respondents don’t think their wealth managers need to improve their offering. “The percentage of clients who reckon their wealth managers do not need to improve their offerings has remained remarkably stable since 2017,” Intellidex said.

Clients were also happy with the performance of their portfolios, despite the unsupportive economy. “Given the market’s sideways movement over the past few years, clients, for the most part, are satisfied with their portfolios’ performance.”

‘Excellent’ ratings not as high as before

It was not all good news, however. Although the percentage of clients who rate the overall service levels of their wealth managers as “very poor” to “poor” was about 6%, those who rated them as excellent fell from 52% in 2017 to 46% in 2019.

Intellidex points out that the fall in the ‘excellent’ percentage coincided with the poor performance of the market.

Even so, in terms of the other attributes surveyed, the service of wealth managers was rated rather highly. About 96% of those surveyed, for example, were “somewhat” to “very satisfied” with their managers’ trustworthiness.

The survey found one notable shift, however – in how clients see themselves.

The percentage of those who self-identify as “passive lump-sum investors” fell from 34% in 2017 to 20% in 2019.

Those who see themselves as “up-and-coming professionals” rose from 22% to 24% over the same period.

Other wins

Notably, large financial institutions winner PSG Wealth also won the awards for young professional and successful entrepreneur categories. Intellidex said PSG “delivered a stellar performance” and that last year’s winner, Standard Bank, came in second “by a very slim margin”.

Boutique winner NFB Private Wealth Management also won the passive lump sum investor archetype award.

PSG and NFB were not the only winners. “Private Client Holdings put in a stellar performance in its first year of entry, taking second position, edging out last year’s overall winner, Gradidge-Mahura.”

This year Intellidex introduced a new award for the country’s top individual wealth manager, with Sonia du Plessis from Brenthurst Wealth named as the top financial advisor of 2019.