Wealth Management

Wealth management goes beyond simply choosing investments. It aims to coordinate all aspects of a client’s financial life, often through a single adviser or team.

Services typically include investment management, retirement planning, tax planning, estate and succession planning, insurance and risk management, charitable giving and sometimes banking and lending services.

Wealth management firms include private banks, independent advisory firms, brokerage firms and family offices. They often focus on clients with significant assets, sometimes with minimum account sizes.

For example, a wealth manager might help a business owner plan the sale of their company, invest the proceeds, minimise tax, plan for retirement and set up trusts to pass wealth to their children.

Wealth managers are paid in different ways: fees based on a percentage of assets managed, fixed fees, hourly charges or commissions on products sold. Clients should understand how their adviser is paid, since some fee arrangements can create conflicts of interest. In many countries, advisers must act in clients’ best interests and disclose their fees, under regulations such as MiFID II in Europe and the Consumer Duty in the UK.