Bluerating | December 2024
The progressive fall in interest rates has led all banks to put managed savings back at the center of their industrial plans.
The most recent moves in the banking game and in general in the reorganization of the internal product factories of the large banking groups – BNL BNP Paribas, UniCredit, Intesa Sanpaolo and Gruppo Banco BPM – are only the beginning of a revolution that has been foreseen for some time.
The primary objective of banking groups is once again to convert the liquidity that lies in current accounts into managed savings and this is to the benefit of both commission returns and the protection and growth of Italians’ assets.
To do this there are two options, focusing on internal or third-party savings management companies, or a third party that is a mix of the first two.
Considering that the possibility of offering their customers investment solutions from the main and most renowned third-party SGRs has characterized the last decade, the most autarchic option is to be discarded especially for the most advanced and capitalized customers.
Private clients, who are more well-heeled and on average more evolved than the average Italian, like to have more options even outside the perimeter of their bank, which the bank promotes, increasing its perception of third-party status.
Italian Financial Advisors and Private Bankers have also changed their attitude towards third-party SGRs: after a phase of blind infatuation that lasted over a decade, they now seem to have become more selective.
Of the 15 SGRs with which Financial Advisors and Private Bankers wanted to work in 2019, less than half were registered last year and this year, for the first time in five years, the number has timidly started to grow again.
Of course, the market has radically changed compared to ten years ago, for at least three reasons. The first, typical of mature markets, is the concentration of market shares in the hands of the largest SGRs.
The pressure of distributors on margins has triggered a competition never seen before between SGRs where to hold positions it is necessary to have significant dimensions, focus on the quality of the service rather than on the single product, and, possibly, have top-class managers.
The second factor is the advent of fee-on-top consultancy which has allowed ETFs to enter the game precisely in the containers of advanced consultancy, thanks to their efficiency and their low costs.
Third, the market has evolved, distributors are looking for partners more than mere suppliers, that is, SGRs that put themselves in their shoes in the difficult, but not impossible, task of converting liquidity into managed savings.
For this reason, today more than ever, two things matter in SGRs: the quality and preparation of people, managers but also and above all sales and the ability to provide solutions with their own vision and quality content.
The United States is often cited as the ideal model for financial consultancy and private banking, ignoring the fact that in the USA private clients have eighty percent of their investments in shares.
In this sense, only those SGRs that are able to help banks and networks convert the hundreds of billions of liquid Euros of Italians into equity investments with the right perspective of time horizon and risk, perhaps putting their life projects at the center, will assert themselves.
The others can only wish a big good luck.
Nicola Ronchetti