A shortage of top-class client relationship managers in the world’s wealth management industry threatens to undermine its efforts to keep up with demand, according to a survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the accountants and consultants.

In an industry still heavily reliant on poaching teams of CRMs from rivals rather than training managers, the job of attracting talented skilled CRMs is the biggest challenge for the sector, the survey, carried out last year among 265 organisations in 43 countries, showed.

Banks and other wealth management firms continue to hire many of their staff from rivals. Earlier in March, for example, Liechtenstein-based VP Bank hired a team of 20 staff from Switzerland's Julius Baer, the banking group.

The PwC report said 257 respondents answered that “attracting appropriately skilled people” was the greatest challenge to the industry while 199 respondents said keeping skilled staff was the most serious issue.

Buoyed by a rise in the number of high net worth individuals, the world’s wealth management sector is struggling to keep pace with demand for CRMs, which is expected to surge by an average pace of 32 per cent globally over the next two years. The Asia-Pacific region is the hottest area, where CRM demand is expected to show a 57 per cent growth rate. Growth in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region is expected to rise by 25 per cent and by 17 per cent in the US, the report said.

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A shortage of top-class client relationship managers in the world’s wealth management industry threatens to undermine its efforts to keep up with demand, according to a survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the accountants and consultants. In an industry still heavily reliant on poaching teams of CRMs from rivals rather than training managers, the job of attracting talented skilled CRMs is the biggest challenge for the sector, the survey, carried out last year among 265 organisations in 43 countries, showed. Banks and other wealth management firms continue to hire many of their staff from rivals. Earlier in March, for example, Liechtenstein-based VP Bank hired a team of 20 staff from Switzerland's Julius Baer, the banking group. The PwC report said 257 respondents answered that “attracting appropriately skilled people” was the greatest challenge to the industry while 199 respondents said keeping skilled staff was the most serious issue. Buoyed by a rise in the number of high net worth individuals, the world’s wealth management sector is struggling to keep pace with demand for CRMs, which is expected to surge by an average pace of 32 per cent globally over the next two years. The Asia-Pacific region is the hottest area, where CRM demand is expected to show a 57 per cent growth rate. Growth in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region is expected to rise by 25 per cent and by 17 per cent in the US, the report said. While the dearth of talented CRMs may be a headache for wealth management firms, however, the sector is at least continuing to expand, contrasting with other parts of the financial services industry that are being hit by the global credit turmoil, the report said. So far, firms still rely heavily on poaching managers from rivals: 377 respondents said they hired CRMs from other companies as a recruiting avenue, while 188 respondents said they used existing bank employees, and 155 hired graduates with wealth management qualifications. To underscore the intense competition for staff, 90 per cent of CRMs said they were approached by a rival firm looking for recruits last year. The report said wealth managers appear to be remarkably optimistic about their ability to hire enough staff – 65 per cent of personnel managers said they were satisfied they had the right strategy to recruit enough CRMs. The skills bottleneck is forcing firms to look further for talent: 47 per cent of respondents told PwC they are recruiting investment bankers, although the report warned that this tactic tends to be expensive and only viable for the largest players. The report showed that lack of training is a major problem for the sector, with only 12 per cent of CRMs saying they get adequate training to do their jobs to a high standard. The survey is available at www.pwc.com/wealth

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