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Category Advantage measures the drivers of brand strength by capturing both mental availability (likelihood a brand comes to mind) and emotional closeness (how strongly consumers connect with a brand) among all competitors. Schedule a private briefing on this research. .
The bottom line up front
Wealth management is still a scale game — but the scale that matters most is mental, not financial. Retirement remains the category’s anchor, yet consumers enter through a wide range of life transitions: tax season, market volatility, inheritance, home buying, and more. Fidelity and Charles Schwab lead the category in consumer recall, but no single brand dominates across all of these entry points. Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of consumers report at least one access barrier preventing them from engaging a wealth management firm. The next growth phase belongs to the firms that connect themselves to more everyday financial triggers — and make the path from consideration to action feel simple.
The Category Today
Consumer recall is concentrated at the top. Charles Schwab, Fidelity, J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley lead brand awareness. But awareness alone does not determine who consumers would actually consider using. When asked which brands come to mind for specific financial situations, Fidelity (15% mental market share) and Charles Schwab (10%) pull away from the field. J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Vanguard form a strong second tier. The gap between “I’ve heard of them” and “They’d be my first call” is wide across the rest of the category.
Retirement is the structural backbone. When consumers consider why they might engage a wealth management firm, retirement planning (52%) is the dominant entry point — by a wide margin. Filing taxes (31%), planning estate transfers (27%), targeting early retirement (26%), and diversifying stock options (25%) follow. This is fundamentally a responsibility-driven category, not one built on active trading or speculation.
The triggers that bring consumers in are broader than many firms message to. Beyond retirement, more than one in five consumers cite inheriting assets (23%), investing in alternatives like private equity (24%), fighting inflation on savings (20%), buying a home (18%), and year-end portfolio rebalancing (17%) as situations where they’d consider a wealth manager. Most firms are not building associations with this many triggers — creating an opportunity for those that do.
Who Are Wealth Management Users?
Economic sentiment: Wealth management users are more optimistic than the general population, but that optimism has softened over the last six months. Their confidence is concentrated in the near-term — they feel better about the next 12 months than about current conditions or the long-term economic outlook. This creates a strategic window: consumers are future-oriented but increasingly looking for stability.
Psychographics: These consumers feel a strong sense of personal agency — they believe they control their financial future. They’re willing to pay more for both quality and convenience, are early adopters of financial technology, and are more environmentally conscious than the general population.
Media footprint: Wealth management users disproportionately consume professional and sports media. They over-index on LinkedIn, podcast listenership, and live sports (NFL, NCAA, MLB, NBA). They are heavy users of online banking and mobile trading platforms. They are reachable — but through professional and sports ecosystems more than mass social channels.
How Segments Differ
The core task structure of wealth management holds across demographics. What changes is weighting — which triggers matter most, and when.
|
Segment |
Key Insight |
|
Ages 21–34 |
Home buying (28%), filing taxes (39%), and starting a business (22%) rival retirement as entry triggers. Brand preferences are still forming — making this the window to build early associations before loyalty solidifies. |
|
Ages 35–44 |
The most friction-sensitive cohort: 75% cite at least one access barrier. Tax optimization (34%), early retirement (30%), and estate planning (29%) peak here. This is the highest-leverage segment for expanding brand consideration. |
|
Ages 45–64 |
Retirement planning dominates (62%). Emotional connection and trust matter most. This cohort protects existing brand relationships but is less sensitive to onboarding friction. |
|
Ages 65+ |
Estate transfer (37%) and inflation protection (24%) drive engagement. Only 22% cite minimum thresholds as a barrier — but complexity remains a meaningful deterrent. Firms that simplify will win. |
|
Women |
Under-index relative to men overall. Over-index on life-transition triggers: inheritance, managing parents’ finances, divorce. A significant and underserved growth pocket. |
|
Post-Grad |
The most barrier-aware group: 71% cite at least one friction point. Fee-laden transfers (28%), complex authentication (23%), and minimums (38%) all peak in this segment — the most financially literate cohort is also the most critical of the experience. |
What’s Holding Consumers Back
Nearly two-thirds of consumers (63%) cite at least one access or usability barrier that has prevented them from using a wealth management service. The friction is not hypothetical — it is actively suppressing conversion. And it is most acute among the segments with the highest growth potential.
|
Barrier |
All Adults |
Peak Segment |
Peak Value |
|
High minimum asset thresholds |
30% |
Ages 35–44 |
42% |
|
Fee-laden asset transfers |
19% |
Ages 35–44 / Post-Grad |
26–28% |
|
Limited physical branches |
21% |
Ages 35–44 |
26% |
|
Complex multi-step authentication |
15% |
Ages 35–44 |
24% |
|
Limited customer support |
14% |
Ages 35–44 / Parents |
20% |
|
Paper-heavy onboarding |
11% |
Post-Grad / 35–44 |
15–18% |
|
Outdated digital platforms |
11% |
Ages 35–44 |
18% |
The pattern is clear: 35–44-year-olds — the segment entering its peak earning and asset accumulation years — are the most friction-sensitive cohort in the category. Three in four cite at least one barrier. These are the consumers most ready to engage, and most turned off by the experience of trying to do so.
Why This Matters Now
Consumer confidence is cooling. Wealth management users remain more optimistic than average, but that confidence has eroded over the past six months. Near-term planning confidence now exceeds long-term economic confidence — which means consumers are actively looking for firms that feel like stabilizers, not speculators.
Being available is not the same as being chosen. Many firms have broad distribution — presence in employer-sponsored plans, embedded within banking apps, accessible through robo-advisor platforms. But distribution does not guarantee that a consumer will think of that brand at a key decision moment. Fidelity leads all brands on recall with the most category needs, but on average Fidelity is still only associated with 8 out of 20 total life triggers measured. The opportunity to expand those associations is enormous.
Barriers are actively shrinking the addressable market. This is not a “somewhat concerned” finding. Nearly two-thirds of consumers cite specific, named friction points that have prevented them from using a wealth management service. Among 35–44-year-olds, 42% say minimum asset thresholds alone have kept them out. Firms that visibly reduce these barriers will unlock real demand.
The next growth phase is about breadth, not repositioning. This category will not be disrupted by radically new positioning. It will be expanded by brands that link themselves to more of the life triggers that already bring consumers into market — retirement, taxes, volatility, inheritance, home buying — and do so across more consumer segments.
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The Strategic Imperative
Build brand associations among younger adults (21–44) before preferences solidify. This is the window to establish relevance across a wider set of financial triggers — particularly taxes, home buying, and stock options.
Address the 35–44 friction crisis head-on. This is the category’s highest-leverage growth segment, but three in four cite access barriers. Minimums, transfer fees, and onboarding complexity are costing the industry share.
Deepen emotional trust with core retirement-age segments (45–64), where loyalty is strong but competitors are always at the door.
Shift messaging from firm attributes to life moments. Lead with the trigger (“You just inherited assets”) rather than the brand trait (“We’re trusted advisors”). Consumers associate wealth management with over 20 distinct life situations — most firms only message to two or three.
Reallocate media spend toward the channels where these consumers actually are: professional networks, podcasts, and live sports.
The core insight: Wealth management is a category where mental scale wins. The firms that become linked to more life transitions — and remove the friction that keeps consumers from acting — will be recalled more often. And the brands recalled most often will capture disproportionate share.
About this research
Morning Consult conducts over 30,000 daily proprietary surveys in 45 countries covering more than 5,000 brands and 50 economic indicators.
Our category advantage research is aimed at understanding the needs driving consumers in your category — and how your brand can own more of them. This research is built on validated principles of brand-driven growth and powered by Morning Consult’s industry-leading sampling technology.
Measure the true drivers of brand strength
Capture both mental availability (the likelihood your brand comes to mind when consumers face a need or occasion) and emotional closeness (how strongly consumers connect with your brand), benchmarked against competitors.
Uncover Category Entry Points (CEPs)
Directly tied to mental availability, see the specific needs, occasions, and triggers that drive purchase decisions in your category, and how strongly your brand is linked to them.
Pinpoint growth opportunities
Direct investment toward the moments and consumer segments with the greatest potential to grow your brand.
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