As the number of wealthy individuals continues to grow in Asia, highly dynamic emerging markets like China and India are moving into the focus of digital wealth management.

A new report from Swiss based research firm MyPrivateBanking claims that 80 percent of leading wealth managers in China use WeChat while 40 percent of leading Indian wealth managers connect clients to advisors through mobile apps  

Wealth managers able to adapt to these countries’ unique digital ecosystems gain access to a large share of the assets of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI), who are still under-served by wealth management institutions and their traditional channels.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Assessing the digital performance of ten of the biggest wealth managers in China, the research identified - among others - the following key digital trends.

WeChat is the most important digital channel for wealth managers. Eight out of ten players covered in the report are active on WeChat, but the picture is mixed in terms of functional coverage and content provision.

Chatbots Growing

«Wealth managers following a one-size-fits-all digital approach will set themselves up for a major strategic disaster,» says Xiaoyang Xu, Analyst at MyPrivateBanking. 

Chatbots are standard among local players. Four wealth managers integrate a chatbot on their WeChat account, website and or mobile app. All of them are local players.

The report also recommends that wealth managers in China should provide digital touch points that enable clients to connect to their advisor anytime and anywhere through in-app messaging tools, video conferencing or text chat.

Client Education Opportunity

The report also identifies wealthy Indians’ extraordinarily high interest in mobile and online wealth management solutions.

This is a good opportunity in MyPrivateBanking’s view for international wealth managers to reach their clients digitally and overcome the obstacle that about one-fifth of India’s HNW population live outside of the metropolitan regions. 

In India four out of ten wealth managers offer a mobile client app that connects users with their personal relationship managers and, thus, fosters client relationships.

Local Loyalty and Trust

The report recommends that wealth managers targeting Indian High Net Worth Individuals build a digital strategy around deeply localised services and gain loyalty and trust by developing their clients’ financial literacy.

Private banks should also serve as a major source for investment guidance as they target many newly-rich who are only now crossing the line between (mass) affluence and HNW. 

Digital Wealth Battleground

The research concludes that the battle for the Asian digital wealth management markets has just begun, and China and India will be the major battlegrounds.

Only those players who fully understand the conditions and landscape of the battlefield will be among the winners.