职场财富——实现财务自由的新途径

2 Empoweringemployees toimprove theirfinancialfutureAhead Of The Curveis a collection of reports in which Oliver Wyman Private Capital Partners share uniqueinsights on innovative trends. The objective is to guide private equity clients through the investmentlandscape and to prepare them for twists and turns. In this edition, Alexander Lesch and Paul Jowett sharetheir perspective on the impact of anaerobic digestion and green certificates on the green energytransition. 3Philip SchroederMartin SanchezBoris Van Meurs forewordby Martin Sanchez, Oliver Wyman Private Capital PartnerAt Oliver Wyman, we believe thatFormula One racing and private equityinvesting have a lot in common.For drivers, cornering is the time of greatest opportunity. For investors,it means looking around the corner to get ahead of trends, carefullypreparing for inflection points in cycles, and backing the right platformsand assets. Just as careful preparation and a combination of driver skilland teamwork can make all thedifference.At Oliver Wyman, we continue to think about where the next bigopportunities in private equity might lie, and we decided to create theAhead of the Curve series. This article and accompanying video interviewhighlight a strategic trend emerging in the wealth management industry:providing financial education and advice to employees, in theworkplace.Philip Schroeder, a partner at Oliver Wyman, spoke with David Cassidy,CEO of WEALTH at work. Together they discussed the financial advice gap,changes in the wealth management industry, and the unique positioningof WEALTH at work. 4 INDUSTRY TRENDCore TrendThe individualization of wealthand the resulting ‘advice gap’Ahead of the curve TrendAddressing the ‘advice gap’ throughworkplace financialeducationINDUSTRY CONTEXT AND MAIN TRENDFinancial planning has changed a lot in the hundred years or so since the UK introduced theprecursor to today’s state pension. Unfortunately, with that evolution has come an increasein complexity that has left mass-market customers in dire need of advice and education.Rather than knowing up front what they will receive at retirement, individuals now musttake responsibility for their own planning and find their way around a fairly complicatedlandscape of tax wrappers and investment products. The market environment hasn’t helped,either. People who traditionally relied on cash savings have seen their wealth erode becauseof low interest rates after the 2008 financial crisis.The recent cost-of-living crisis has pushed financial well-being further up the societalagenda. In practice, this has worked well for the wealthier part of the UK population,with various wealth adviser business models available for their needs. For others, however,a significant “advice gap” has emerged. The Retail Distribution Review (RDR), introducedin 2006, was meant to increase transparency and reduce charges, as well as place morestringent requirements on advisers. That caused many advisers to exit the industry,with their numbers falling from 39,000 to 22,000 between 2006 and 2013. Those whoremained typically moved upmarket, as higher cost left them unable to serve many oftheir less-affluent clients profitably.Technological solutions such as “robo-advice” have been hailed as the solution to the advicegap. While their prevalence continues to increase, they remain small in absolute terms,and haven’t delivered on their promise. All of this leaves a large part of the UK — estimatesrange from about 5 million people to close to 40 million — without an effective source ofhelp, at a time when there is an increasing need for one. SEEING AHEAD OF THE CURVEIn our view, any face-to-face advice solution that effectively addresses the advice gap wouldneed to encompass three components:Provide effective financial education or advice to mass-market customers,at a reasonable costWhile a multitude of advice distribution models exist in the UK, most of them are less suitedto the mass-market customer. Fees of most traditional wealth managers or IndependentFinancial Adviser (IFA) are too high for these consumers, and low-cost solutions (such asrobo-advice) have not been able to provide the quality of advice required todate.…through an economically viable business model for the adviceproviders…The issue is that for most wealth managers, the economics of offering good face-to-faceadvice, at low cost to less affluent customers, simply don’t add up. Regulation has pushed upcosts, and most parts of the wealth management value chain face price pressure. This is alsowhy many advisers decided to leave the industry after the introduction of Retail DistributionReview(RDR).…while offering a convincing value proposition toadvisersFinancial advisers are a scarce commodity in today’s market environment. The averageadviser is relatively old, and many advisers are thus expected to leave the industry over thenext decade. Competition for advisers is also fierce — with many consolidators continuallyacquiring adv