The $30 Trillion Evaporation: Why a Human-First Approach to Wealth Management Could Scatter the Greatest Inheritance in History
Firms are building elaborate "next-gen desks," hiring younger relationship managers and launching heir-onboarding programs, all predicated on a single flawed assumption: That capturing the wealth transfer from older generations to Millennials and Gen Z means retaining the assets within the firm.
Simply put, the great wealth transfer that’s underway and set to move $30 trillion in assets to Gen Z by 2030 will not neatly consolidate into incumbent platforms, yet many firms are doubling down on their human-first advisory models. In doing so, they may be engineering their own irrelevance as they fail to deliver to the needs and expectations of the next generation of customers.
Leveraging proprietary insights gathered during the course of our 2026 consumer banking research, this whitepaper investigates the generational differences in attitudes among Gen Z and Millennial banking customers, exploring:
- The scope of fragmentation today’s wealth managers face
- A strategic framework to address those challenges
- The competitive advantage at play for firms who choose to innovate
The generational wealth transfer underway is different than any challenges the industry has faced before. The firms that recognize this distinction and act on it immediately will define the next era of wealth management.
