Wealth management firms need to develop new offerings around emerging trends such as the rise of digital assets and sustainable investing, according to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2021, which looks globally at high net worth individuals and wealth management trends.
Fast facts:
- “Despite the black-swan volatility of the past 18 months, unprecedented stock market gains in 2020 led to a more than 6% spike in [the] global HNWI population as HNWI wealth rose 7.6%,” wrote Anirban Bose, Capgemini’s financial services strategic business unit CEO and group executive board member in the report’s preface.
- Against the backdrop of a 3.5% decline in global GDP in 2020 and a low interest-rate environment, making assets such as cash and fixed-income less profitable, cryptocurrencies have presented new opportunities for investors and wealth management firms, the report said.
- According to Capgemini’s 2021 survey of more than 2,900 HNWIs across 26 markets, 72% said they had invested in cryptocurrencies. “Speculative investors are sinking money into everything from virtual art to digital homes and virtual baseball cards — thanks to blockchain-powered non-fungible tokens,” the report said.
- “It is time for wealth management firms to be prepared with offerings for emerging asset classes such as cryptocurrency and even potential future asset classes such as carbon currency,” it said.