Technology 'imperative' in the great wealth transfer pivot

‘It will help advisers become ready’

Isabel Baxter

27 January 2025? 4 min read

Technology will be ‘imperative’ to navigating the great wealth transfer and serving a younger and wealthier generation, Seismic international financial services marketing lead Gemma Livermore says.

Speaking to Professional Adviser, Livermore said that in industry has got a clash of two things that going to be impactful for women in wealth and for younger generations in wealth.

"You've got a commercial need for wealth advisers and IFAs to want to appeal to women and younger generations for the first time in a long time, but you also have people not quite knowing how to pivot and trying to change that historical tradition," she explained. "Technology will help advisers become ready."

By 2030, a projected $18.3trn in wealth will be transferred globally and by 2050 ￡7trn is expected to pass between generations in the UK alone. Research has pegged the transfer to come mostly from Boomers totalling nearly $84trn, with about $72trn going to heirs and $12 trillion to charities.

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Meanwhile, if women invested at the same rate as men, it is estimated that there would be an additional $3.2trn in assets under management globally, according to a 2021 study by BNY Mellon Investment Management.

As the great wealth transfer goes ahead, technology will be "imperative" for several reasons, Livermore noted, but particularly when it comes to tracking.

"How do you track what engagements are now working? It's important to have that tracking system with technology. Where is the engagement? What's landing well, and what's being read?," she said. "It's one thing to create things but are people engaging with it?"

"People are much more aware now and there's a lot more information out there for everybody to take in and to get hold of. People don't have to stay with the same wealth adviser or IFA, there are choices out there, and they can get information from everywhere. There's a lot more products out there."

Finding products suited to client needs at speed

Livermore noted that technology can help and assist an IFA to find suitable products and tailor them to the client that they are speaking to at speed.

In Livermore's experience, women and younger generations are a lot more interested in what they are investing in, rather than just the returns.

"For women and younger generations, they're a lot more interested in what they're investing in, rather than just the return on investment. And that's a big game changer as well and where we also see a lot of ESG focus coming through," Livermore said.

The concern about tech adoption

Livermore said that technology adoption is something that is a concern whenever a firm or individual takes on any new technology.

"When it's new, people want to make sure they're taking it on properly, and that they understand how to use it," she said. "One of the things that we at Seismic use is learning and coaching tools. But rather than it being your traditional training, where you'd learn it all in one way, this training meets people where they're currently at.

"It's micro learning and constantly helps them to learn about those new products. Everyone learns in their own way and in their own style and pace rather than blanketing everybody with one day training as it used to be when I started in my career. That's imperative way of making sure that tech adoption is taken on."

Livermore said that when generational tech adoption is discussed, people immediately assume that older generations will not know how to take it on.

"But I think what you forget is that older generation has been the first to adopt phones, the internet and mobile phones as major examples," she said. "There are all of these new adoptions they've already been through, so that's not going to be a barrier.

"It's just about meeting people where they're at and showing them how to use it."

Livermore also said that with Consumer Duty in place, technology plays a role in how client centric an advice business can be.

"Technology is helpful, because by collecting that data, we can see when it's time to put certain aspects of that bed because it's not working/not being used, and which ones are working.

"Having that data and ability to collect client engagement data on the back end is really important, because that's where you'll know when to stop doing something or when to do more something," she concluded.

Read the full article here: Technology 'imperative' in the great wealth transfer pivot