A Guide to Intergenerational Wealth Transfer
Find out here how you should be engaging next generation clients.
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The Intergenerational Wealth Transfer is one of the biggest shifts facing wealth management and financial planning firms today. Over the coming decades, trillions will pass from Baby Boomers to their children and grandchildren.
For advice firms, this is both a threat and an opportunity. If relationships with beneficiaries are ignored, advisers risk losing assets as wealth changes hands. But by embracing technology, personalisation, and next-generation engagement, advisers can build loyalty that spans generations.
This guide explores how to retain and grow assets by putting the next generation at the centre of your client strategy.
Understanding the Scale of Intergenerational Wealth Transfer
Why Next Generation Engagement Matters
Millennials and Gen Z Expectations
Which features are important?
Inheritance Planning and Compliance Confidence
Building Advocacy Through Families
Where to go next
Understanding the Scale of Intergenerational Wealth Transfer
The UK is on the brink of a seismic wealth shift. Over £5.5 trillion is expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials and Gen Z between now and 2050, reshaping the financial landscape for decades to come.
This has already begun. As inheritances increase in both size and frequency, advisers are faced with a stark choice: adapt to serve the next generation, or risk seeing assets walk out the door. Schroders underscored this urgency, warning that ignoring clients’ beneficiaries is tantamount to destroying business value.
When a client passes away, wealth rarely stays put. Without proactive engagement, it moves with the family, often towards a different adviser who has already earned their trust. The message is clear: relationships must extend beyond the first generation if firms want to safeguard their future.
Advisers who fail to build meaningful connections with clients’ children and heirs risk undermining the very foundations of their business. The intergenerational wealth transfer is not a threat, it’s a defining growth opportunity for your firm to grow, but only if you act now.
Clients are the foundation of every advice business, and the relationships you build with them ultimately determine your firm’s long-term success. Understanding not only your clients but also the people who will inherit their wealth allows you to shape the future of your business with intent, rather than leaving it to chance. The firms that thrive will be those that see beyond today’s portfolios and build trust that lasts across generations.
Why Next Generation Engagement Matters
The UK is on the brink of a seismic wealth shift. Over £5.5 trillion is expected to transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials and Gen Z between now and 2050, reshaping the financial landscape for decades to come.
This has already begun. As inheritances increase in both size and frequency, advisers are faced with a stark choice: adapt to serve the next generation, or risk seeing assets walk out the door. Schroders underscored this urgency, warning that ignoring clients’ beneficiaries is tantamount to destroying business value.
When a client passes away, wealth rarely stays put. Without proactive engagement, it moves with the family, often towards a different adviser who has already earned their trust. The message is clear: relationships must extend beyond the first generation if firms want to safeguard their future.
Advisers who fail to build meaningful connections with clients’ children and heirs risk undermining the very foundations of their business. The intergenerational wealth transfer is not a threat, it’s a defining growth opportunity for your firm to grow, but only if you act now.
Clients are the foundation of every advice business, and the relationships you build with them ultimately determine your firm’s long-term success. Understanding not only your clients but also the people who will inherit their wealth allows you to shape the future of your business with intent, rather than leaving it to chance. The firms that thrive will be those that see beyond today’s portfolios and build trust that lasts across generations.
Millennials and Gen Z Expectations
Millennials are typically defined as those born between 1981 and 1996. They grew up alongside the rise of digital technology, adopting email, social media, and mobile apps as they matured. Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, are different still. They are true digital natives, having never known a world without smartphones, instant connectivity, and on-demand services.
For them, digital is not an add-on, it is the default. Your future customers don’t just want digital, they expect it.
Despite these differences, both groups share important values. Think of the companies that actively show they care about LGBT+ causes, environmental responsibility, charity and ESG initiatives. Many firms have adopted these priorities in response to the rising expectations of new customers. People care deeply about the businesses they choose to align with and often view those affiliations as extensions of their own identity. In return, they expect to be treated as individuals. Listened to, recognised, and shown genuine care. It’s not just about supporting causes, it’s about rising to meet customer expectations, which can be make or break. In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, with endless options available, if you don’t give people what they want, they will quickly find someone else who will.
This is especially relevant in financial services. Research participants have voiced frustrations with fragmented pensions, legacy systems, and the complexity of managing multiple pots. The common theme is a desire for consolidation and simplicity, with a strong preference for digital solutions over paper-based processes.
For advisers, the path forward is clear. Tailor services to Gen Z with greater transparency, values-based alignment, and communication that feels authentic. Above all, make the experience as seamless as the technology they already trust, whether that is their banking app, their online retailer, or their favourite subscription service. These generations will settle for nothing less.
Which features are important?
Digital technology is the bridge from your existing clients to your next ones. A branded client portal or app makes you relevant not only to the client across the table, but also to their children and grandchildren. Research shows that even high-net-worth individuals increasingly prefer digital engagement over traditional meetings.
Younger generations echo this, describing a strong preference for managing their finances through apps rather than paper or post.
Technology is not just about keeping pace with the present. It is about preparing for the future. And one important step you cannot miss is inheritance planning, where continuity between generations depends on the trust, security, and accessibility you create today.
Features that help to bridge the gap
Your service should already feel natural to your existing clients, but now it must feel natural to both Millennials and Gen Z as well. You need to bridge the gap between clients who value long-standing, trusted relationships and heirs who expect instant, digital-first experiences.
Open banking integration
Open banking allows different accounts and pensions to be connected, giving families a clear, consolidated picture. For younger generations managing multiple jobs and savings, this is particularly valuable. It also opens opportunities for advisers to provide timely nudges, personalised guidance, and evidence of Consumer Duty in practice.
Secure messaging
Privacy and trust are central to any client relationship. Secure messaging allows families to communicate sensitive financial information without relying on email, which is vulnerable to phishing and data breaches. For advisers, it creates a clear audit trail of conversations, strengthening compliance while improving the client experience.
Digital document storage and e-signatures
Families want simplicity. Being able to store key documents securely in a portal, and to sign paperwork electronically, reduces delays and ensures vital information is accessible when it matters most. For inheritance planning, it means wills, trusts, and powers of attorney are always available in a single, secure location.
Biometric login
For Millennials and Gen Z, security must be invisible. Fingerprint or face recognition logins mirror the way they already interact with their banks and smartphones. It removes friction, keeps accounts safe, and signals to clients that their adviser is offering the same standards as the technology they already trust.
Personalised dashboards
Millennials and Gen Z expect digital experiences to feel personal. Dashboards that highlight progress toward goals, track investments in real time, and adapt to individual needs help to build loyalty. They also provide a way for advisers to demonstrate ongoing value without needing constant face-to-face meetings.
Inheritance Planning and Compliance Confidence
Inheritance planning is as much about clarity and conflict-prevention as it is about tax. A simple “In Case of Emergency” structure inside your portal centralises wills, LPAs, policies, and key contacts so families can act quickly when it matters {https://moneyinfo.com/latest-news/in-case-of-emergency-ice-for-advisers}.
Regulation expects this approach too. Under Consumer Duty, firms must evidence good outcomes, identify and support vulnerable customers, and provide information that is clear and accessible. Digital workflows, audit trails, and role-based access help you demonstrate this in practice {https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/good-and-poor-practice/consumer-duty-implementation-good-practice-and-areas-improvement} {https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/good-and-poor-practice/delivering-vulnerable-customers}. FCA+1
The tax context is intensifying the need for planning. IHT receipts keep hitting records, driven by frozen thresholds and rising asset values, with the OBR projecting further increases. Proposed 2027 changes will bring more pensions into scope, which is already prompting families to seek advice earlier {https://moneyweek.com/personal-finance/inheritance-tax/inheritance-tax-receipts} {https://moneyweek.com/personal-finance/pensions/withdraw-pensions-inheritance-tax-rules-warning}. MoneyWeek+1
Bring this together into a single, digital process. Agree family permissions. Populate the ICE folder. Map communications to Consumer Duty evidence. Then keep beneficiaries engaged with ongoing, app-based touchpoints. It protects clients, and your firm.
Where to go next
Winning families starts long before money changes hands. The most successful advisers are already hosting structured family conversations that bring heirs into the picture early. They are offering simple financial education to young adults, helping them build confidence before wealth arrives. And they are using branded portals to give beneficiaries a visible role in the relationship, from accessing documents to communicating securely with the adviser.
By focusing on these moments now, you put your firm in the strongest position to retain assets, deepen trust, and create relationships that extend far beyond the first generation.
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