Global financial wealth reached $305 trillion in 2024, an all-time high. But the dynamics behind that growth are shifting—and the implications for firms are profound.
Financial assets rose more than 8%, fueled by strong equity markets and favorable investor sentiment. Cross-border flows accelerated. North America and Asia-Pacific continued to be the fastest-growing regions. In many markets, wealth managers delivered solid results. Wealth continues to grow steadily.
Sustaining that momentum is becoming more difficult, however. Net wealth—which comprises financial assets, real assets, and liabilities—grew just 4.4%, below the 5.1% average of the prior five years. Currency swings and inflation compressed returns, and geopolitical tensions are adding historic levels of uncertainty. More importantly, the sources of growth are shifting.
Less than a third of the growth in assets under management over the past decade came from existing advisors—and in mature markets, that figure falls to 22%. Most firms have leaned heavily on market performance, M&A, and advisor hiring. While these levers remain important, they’re not enough. The limiting factor for many firms isn’t opportunity, but their ability to capture it from within. As one senior executive told BCG, “More than 80% of our net new assets over the last five years came from newly hired advisors—not from the teams already in place.”
As a result, organic growth is moving to the center of the performance agenda. Our analysis shows that net new assets play an outsized role in how investors value firms—explaining roughly half the variation in price-to-earnings (P/E) multiples across the industry. Mature markets are falling furthest behind. From 2014 to 2024, organic growth varied sharply by region, with wealth managers in Latin America and Asia-Pacific achieving rates of 52% and 50%, respectively—more than double that of their peers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and North America.
The firms gaining traction are investing in the capabilities that matter most: a clearer market presence, more deliberate client acquisition, better-equipped advisors, and earlier, more relevant engagement with rising generations. Technology plays a central role in scaling these capabilities. This report explores how these growth engines are built and how to stay ahead as the industry enters its next chapter.
