The wealth management industry is undergoing profound transformation. Accelerating M&A activity and market consolidation are driving the need for greater scale and improved profitability in an increasingly competitive environment. For example, private-equity-backed buyers were involved in more than three-quarters of wealth management transactions reported in 2025.
In the UK alone this year we have seen the NatWest acquisition of Evelyn Partners. Schroders sold its stake in Schroders Personal Wealth to Lloyds, with Lloyds rebranding the business as Lloyds Wealth. Rathbones combined with Investec Wealth & Investment UK, adding approximately £43bn of funds under management, creating one of the UK’s largest discretionary wealth managers.
Against this background, AI-driven platforms and robo-advisors are lowering barriers to entry for wealth management products and services and commoditizing many traditional value propositions. As a result, established brand equity is becoming increasingly diluted, eroding differentiation and creating cultural challenges as firms struggle to define a distinctive and sustainable competitive advantage.
The industry is fragmenting and polarising with digital led brands emerging across the landscape. Brands such as Robinhood, Betterment, Wealthfront, SoFi, Acorns, and Stash focussing on automation and AI, with intuitive digital experiences. These brands are not simply offering investment products – they are redefining how wealth is built, managed, and accessed.
But what these digital first brands lack is emotional resonance, the ability to understand the relationship that people have with money. In short, they lack empathy that is so critical to the future of peoples’ financial lives.
From wealth management to life management
One size no longer fits all. Fear of the future, uncertainty and an ever-evolving financial landscape requires a more holistic approach that shifts from just selling products and growing wealth, to enriching and anticipating clients’ and their dependents life stages.
What is abundantly clear is that ‘managing wealth’ is too narrow a phrase to describe how finances encompass and impact the wider sphere of peoples’ lives – a relic of yesterday’s world that is no longer relevant, lacking soul and the reality of how people live their lives. Ultimately, the most successful ‘life management’ advisors don’t just manage portfolios – they help clients navigate the ups and downs of life, at their side, anticipating and adapting and orchestrating their futures and the emotions attached to money and finances.
What once seemed an improbable alliance between human and artificial intelligence has become an established reality. Most client portfolios combine algorithm-based investments (ETFs) and human advisors. However, often overlooked, is the vital importance of empathy as a key driver of long-term trust and brand salience. In a world of constant change and the dominance of digital natives, the importance of a trusted advisor and friend cannot be under-estimated. As Sterling K. Brown, the actor and philosopher commented “Empathy begins with the understanding of life from another person’s perspective”.
The future will be marked by hybrid brands, disruptors that break the moulds of ‘wealth managers’, blending technology and automated products with the empathy of human advisors that are in step with their clients’ lives.
Empathy-led brands start with the why
The clients of the future are also changing. They are increasingly investing not just for financial returns, but for social purpose as the importance of ESG demonstrates.
There is clear evidence, as Kantar’s BrandZ brand equity research shows, brands that have a meaningful purpose, that are driven by emotion and have social and environmental benefits, beyond making profits, that stand for an ideal, will not just survive but thrive.
These are brands that are empathy-led. Think of Patagonia, whose stated business is “save our home planet”, or Nespresso’s ‘made with care’. Even Coke’s ‘open and share happiness’ reached beyond product benefits and promised a social good of bringing people together. These often-quoted brands had a higher purpose embedded in them from the outset. Their sustainability credentials are very clear and their purpose is demonstrated in their cultures and how their organisations are run. Their authenticity, their values, their messaging and what they offer draws consumers to them.
As Kantar’s research indicates, empathy-led brands always position their propositions on their purpose, starting with ‘why we exist’, and how we go about making meaningful differences to people’s lives. We can draw direct learnings for the wealth management sector, as barriers to entry have been lowered and products and services have become table stakes, brands that focus on ‘life management’ and start with the ‘why’ will be the winners in our future focused world.
Empathy-led brands – the future for the ‘life management’ industry
There is no doubt that technology, (with AI having the intelligence to predict investment futures), will dominate client portfolios in the future, but equally, if not more so, human intelligence will be crucial given the fragility and uncertainty of the geo-political landscape.
Brand positioning that establishes the balance between technology and the wisdom and integrity of human judgement and focus on their client’s broader life needs, will disrupt the incumbents.
Brands that break with the pack, refuse to be called ‘wealth managers’ and start with why we exist and the meaningful differences they bring to people’s lives, will change the world of ‘wealth management’. These will be the brands that demonstrate the true human values of empathy and understanding.
In the words of Bob Marley “The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.” The same could be said of the brands that will define the next generation of this industry.
Written by Terry Tyrrell
