Moving upmarket demands that wealth management firms adopt a wider service menu, but the capabilities that matter most, such as tax, trust and estate planning, are also the costliest to scale and the most likely to be outsourced. According to the latest “Cerulli Edge — U.S. Advisor Edition”, Cerulli expects firms that can adequately assess the build vs. buy vs. outsource decisions to increasingly differentiate themselves as margin pressure ramps up.
The rapid degree of wealth concentration in the United States over the past decade has increased demand for more sophisticated wealth and investment management services. High-net-worth (HNW) households, those with more than $5 million in financial assets, are estimated to hold 57 percent of total U.S. household financial wealth as of year-end 2025, up from 43 percent in 2019.
To capture this growing opportunity, firms seeking to outpace their peers have shifted their business models to focus on upmarket clientele, a s
