Following a rocky 2018 in capital markets and negative investment yields, many Canadian investors are feeling edgy about their financial holdings and report they have less satisfaction with their investment firms, according to the JD Power 2019 Canada Full Service Investor Satisfaction Study, released in April.
For the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, customer satisfaction has declined.
“There is a belief in the industry that challenging market conditions are when financial advisors most demonstrate their value to clients, said Mike Foy, a director at JD Power. But what we see is that many advisors are not consistently having the sometimes difficult conversations necessary to manage client expectations and navigate through market volatility and downturns.”
According to the study, 32% of investors say their advisor did not take the time to explain their portfolio performance during the past year. Investors who do not receive an advisor explanation are almost twice as likely as those who receive an explanation (36% versus 19%, respectively) to indicate their financial performance was “worse than expected” and were significantly less satisfied with both that performance and their advisor.
The largest declines in performance satisfaction are among affluent investors, those with assets greater than $500,000.
Edward Jones rated highest in overall investor satisfaction for the seventh consecutive year. Assante ranked second , BMO Nesbitt Burns, CIBC Wood Gundy and Raymond James ranked third in a tie.
