Can banks handle the Great Wealth Transfer?

Discover how globally mobile heirs are reshaping wealth management.

In brief

• Over USD$ 100tn will transfer to heirs in the coming decades, reshaping wealth management and forcing banks to rethink client engagement, compliance and advisory models.
• Globally mobile heirs with complex structures increase cross-border regulatory, tax and operational demands for banks managing multi-jurisdictional families.
• Managed services help banks scale expertise, improve compliance consistency and turn the Great Wealth Transfer into a strategic growth opportunity.

A tectonic shift in global wealth is underway. Over the next two decades, more than US$ 100 trillion in assets is expected to move from older generations to their heirs, making it the largest wealth transfer in modern history.

Demographic change is the primary driver. Much of the world’s private wealth is currently held by the baby boomer generation, many of whom are now entering their seventies. As these assets begin to pass to the next generation, wealth management institutions face a profound transformation in their client base.

The scale alone is unprecedented. The assets expected to transfer represent multiple trillions of dollars per year. It is estimated that more than 60% of assets held in private banks are controlled by the baby boomer and silent generations.¹

Yet the impact of the capital transfer goes beyond sheer volume. The wealth movement represents a change in who controls wealth, how wealth is structured and what clients expect from financial institutions.

For banks, this moment represents both risk and opportunity. Inheritance events often trigger a reassessment of banking relationships. Research suggests that more than half of heirs change their wealth manager when they transfer assets, creating a significant risk of asset outflows for institutions that fail to adapt.²

Next-generation clients bring new complexity

The clients inheriting this wealth are different from the current generation of wealth holders.

Most wealth today has been created by self-made entrepreneurs and executives. In fact, more than 80% of today’s high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients built their wealth themselves, meaning this will often be the first time significant assets are passed on within their families.

Their heirs typically have very different lifestyles and expectations. Direct beneficiaries are often between 45 and 65 years old, financially literate and already experienced in managing professional careers or businesses.

At the same time, wealthy families are increasingly international. It is increasingly common for family members to live in several countries, maintain multiple tax residencies and hold assets across jurisdictions through complex structures such as trusts, foundations and holding companies.

This globalization significantly increases the complexity of family succession and inheritance planning. Wealth management advisors must navigate different regulatory frameworks, tax regimes and legal structures while coordinating services across several booking centers and jurisdictions.

For banks, serving these globally mobile families requires capabilities that go far beyond traditional investment advisory, including holistic wealth management advice that addresses succession, structuring and cross‑border complexity.

Wealth transfers multiply operational and regulatory complexity

Wealth transfers rarely involve a simple transfer from one client to another. Instead, wealth is often distributed across multiple beneficiaries, structures and jurisdictions.

Nearly half of transferred assets are expected to go to children and roughly 28% to spouses, while smaller shares are directed to grandchildren, philanthropic causes and governments through taxes.

In many cases, this means a single client relationship evolves into several relationships with different beneficiaries, each with distinct needs, tax circumstances and financial goals.

At the same time, wealth itself is becoming more complex. Inherited portfolios often include a mix of real estate, private businesses, financial assets, trusts, insurance policies and foundations.

These structures create additional compliance obligations for banks. Cross-border relationships require coordination with legal and tax experts in multiple jurisdictions, while regulators are increasing scrutiny around licensing, suitability, anti-money-laundering and investor protection.

Client onboarding and KYC processes are also becoming more demanding as financial institutions must document beneficial ownership across increasingly complex global structures.

In effect, the wealth transfer does not simply change who holds the assets. It significantly increases the operational, legal and regulatory workload associated with managing them.

The organizational challenge for banks

Despite the scale of the coming transition, many wealth management institutions are not yet fully prepared.

Succession planning and wealth transfer discussions remain peripheral in many advisory models. Investment and lending services still dominate internal priorities, while wealth planning capabilities are often limited in scale.

At the same time, the supply of experienced wealth planning specialists is constrained, particularly in key wealth hubs such as the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Even when banks attempt to expand their expertise, the traditional approach of adding specialized advisors to support relationship managers can be difficult to scale. Complex multi-jurisdictional client cases require legal, tax and structuring expertise across several countries, which is costly to maintain internally.

This creates a structural challenge. As generational transfers accelerate, banks will need to support more clients, more jurisdictions and more complex structures without proportionally expanding internal resources.

Managed services offer a scalable solution

Managed services provide a practical way for banks to address this operational gap.

Instead of building every capability internally, institutions can partner with specialized providers to support key regulatory, operational and advisory functions. This allows banks to retain control over client relationships while leveraging external expertise to handle complexity at scale.

Several areas are particularly well suited to this model:

Turning the wealth transfer into a growth opportunity

While the Great Wealth Transfer introduces significant operational challenges, it also represents one of the largest growth opportunities the wealth management industry has ever seen.

Industry leaders increasingly recognize that early engagement with wealth planning delivers measurable benefits. Relationship managers who actively engage clients in wealth planning discussions have been shown to generate 20% higher assets under management (AuM) and higher profitability compared with their peers.³

The strategic goal is therefore not simply to retain assets when they transfer, but to build relationships with the next generation before the transfer occurs.

Banks that successfully adapt their operating models will be able to offer more holistic services, including multi-jurisdictional wealth planning, family governance advisory, philanthropic planning and cross-border structuring expertise. Offering solutions that are attractive to beneficiaries, financial institutions stand to win new clients and assets over the coming decades, besides retaining existing relationships.

In this environment, the ability to coordinate complex advisory ecosystems becomes a key competitive differentiator.

The institutions that prepare now will lead the next era of wealth management

The Great Wealth Transfer is already underway, and its effects will accelerate in the coming decade.

For wealth management institutions, the question is no longer whether the shift will happen, but how prepared they are to manage it.

Banks that continue to rely solely on traditional operating models risk being overwhelmed by the regulatory, operational and advisory complexity that accompanies globally mobile wealth.

Those that modernize their capabilities with digital compliance solutions and wealth management innovation, however, have the opportunity to reposition themselves as trusted advisors to multi-generational, international families.