Surging adoption of instant messaging (IM) channels speaks to shifting demographic and behavioral trends among investors, and a desire for real-time and personalized interactions. These investors have embraced the use of IM in their daily lives, and would gladly use it to interact with their advisors, given the opportunity. The simplicity and immediacy of IM resonates with investors in ways that clumsy client portals and other in-house solutions cannot.

The challenges faced by wealth managers in accommodating this demand do much to explain the nearly $2 billion in fines visited by the SEC upon big banks and brokerages. Adding urgency to the dilemma facing wealth managers, and less tech-savvy advisers in particular, is the relative youth of IM users and the proliferation of applications or use cases for IM, which extend from robust communications to workflow and execution functions.

Key questions discussed in this report:

• What are the most used instant messaging platforms?
• How are investors communicating with their advisers?
• What are the key demographics of instant messaging users?
   

Companies Mentioned:

ACA Group, CellTrust, Global Relay, iMessage, Kroll, LeapXpert, Meta, Signal, Slack Smarsh, Telegram, TeleMessage, Unblu, WhatsApp