An increasing number of traditional wealth management firms are struggling to tailor their offerings to the changing needs of HNW individuals, a new Capgemini report found.
Global HNW wealth rose sharply in 2025, increasing 8.7 per cent to reach a record $98.3 trillion, according to Capgemini’s World Wealth Report 2026 published today. It marks the strongest annual rise since 2018, driven by resilient equity markets and easing inflation, which together supported broad-based wealth creation across major regions.
The number of millionaires also grew, rising by nearly 2 million from the previous year to 25.3 million globally. The report also found that growth was strongest at the top end of the market, with UHNW individuals continuing to outperform. The UHNW population rose 9.4 per cent to around 250,000, while UHNW wealth increased 9.7 per cent year-on-year.
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Capgemini also found that demand for alternative assets remains strong, with investors turning to them as a way to access more diversified and less correlated to public market moves, and therefore more resilient to volatility.
Gareth Wilson, global banking industry leader at Capgemini, said the main driver behind this shift is investors’ focus on diversification, with clients looking for an investment product or asset class that is different and complementary to what they would typically hold in their public portfolios.
He added that as wealth continues to grow and concentrate at the upper end of the market, investors are increasingly focused on building resilience across their portfolios, which is expected to sustain demand for alternative assets going forward.
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This shift is also reflected in how clients are choosing to structure their relationships with wealth and investment firms. Rather than relying on a single provider, more wealthy individuals are now spreading their assets across multiple firms. Just 19 per cent of HNWIs used one wealth manager in 2025, down from 39 per cent in 2019, as clients seek access to more specialised and differentiated investment offerings.
At the same time, fragmentation across the industry is increasing, the report found. Between 12 per cent and 25 per cent of wealthy individuals now hold four to six wealth management relationships, up from previous levels over the past five years, highlighting a growing preference for multiple advisers rather than a single point of contact.
Wilson also highlighted the broader structural implications of this shift, pointing to significant asset flows away from traditional wealth managers.
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He noted that around $1.5 trillion in potential assets under management are moving towards family offices, independent advisers and technology-led platforms such as robo-advisers, which also speaks of intensifying competition across the sector.
Beneath the strong wealth growth figures, however, Capgemini highlights a more fundamental challenge. The report found that the client experience is struggling to keep pace with rising expectations, including more personalised, human-led and coordinated advice across clients’ financial lives.
Despite the record levels of HNW wealth, only 17 per cent of clients say the advice they receive feels seamless and tailored to their individual situation. At the same time, 42 per cent say they are repeatedly required to restate their goals and preferences, pointing to ongoing friction in how services are delivered.
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Capgemini suggests this gap is being driven less by demand and more by how firms are structured. Most wealth managers still rely on traditional segmentation models, with 97 per cent grouping clients primarily by wealth bands and 78 per cent using static risk profiles. More behavioural approaches remain limited, with only a small minority of firms factoring in digital engagement or investment motivations when giving advice.
As a result, many providers are struggling to reflect the increasing complexity of client needs, even as expectations continue to shift towards more personalised and seamless experiences. More than half of executives (60 per cent) acknowledge their firms lack a unified view of the client, leading to fragmented processes and duplicated effort, while 41 per cent of relationship manager (RM) time is still absorbed by operational tasks rather than client engagement.
‘Clients, including younger HNWIs benefiting from wealth transfers, are seeking more: greater product access, deeper personalisation, and advice that truly reflects their lifestyle. Firms that can deliver this at scale, powered by AI-enabled insights and capabilities, will define the next era of wealth management,’ said Kartik Ramakrishnan, CEO of Capgemini’s financial services strategic business unit.
For Anneka Treon, global head of private banking at ING, this gap between evolving client demands and traditional wealth management firms’ offerings can be explained by the fact that ‘modern wealth clients are increasingly accustomed to working seamlessly and digitally in their day-to-day lives,’ she writes in the report.
‘When these clients face friction when interacting around wealth with their private bank, the contrast starts to feel big, prompting clients to look elsewhere. This puts the traditional private banking model at risk of stagnation while digital players continue to build credibility.’
So how should wealth advisers react? The report says wealth managers will need to rethink how they operate, moving beyond incremental change towards a more structural redesign of the client experience.
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Speaking to the press, Wilson also added that ‘hyperpersonalisation has become the new baseline in a client-facing context.’
That shift, according to the report, starts with widening access to products and services, as most HNWIs now work with multiple firms in order to reach better investment opportunities (particularly in alternatives). But Capgemini argues that product access alone is no longer enough, with value-added services such as tax, estate and retirement planning becoming central to retaining clients.
The second change is around the role of the RM, who the report finds must increasingly act as an orchestrator across specialists spanning tax, lending, estate planning and philanthropy. Yet with RMs still spending a significant share of their time on operational tasks, the report suggests firms that free up capacity for client engagement are seeing stronger outcomes, including higher levels of client advocacy.
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As Massy Williams, the head of wealth management at Vanguard, noted in her contribution to the report: ‘Wealth management is becoming an intelligence-led industry: the real impact of AI is not just efficiency, but elevation enabling hyper-personalised, insight-driven client experiences while freeing advisors to focus on deeper, more meaningful relationships.’
‘The different advantage is not operational, it’s really relational,’ Luca Russignan, global head at Capgemini’s research institute, told the press.
‘In a world where products commoditise and algorithms proliferate, the one thing competitors cannot replicate is the quality of the human relationship. The adviser who knows what you need before you’ve said that, and that’s the idea of human judgment as the real luxury, and that’s where the report lands.’
