NEW YORK, October 15, 2026 — Affluent American investors are increasingly combining professional financial advice with independent investment management, creating a complex retention challenge for wealth management companies as digital brokerage platforms compete for a larger share of household assets.

Research from Crisil Coalition Greenwich indicates that approximately 22% of affluent investors maintain both advisor-managed and self-directed investment accounts. The findings, highlighted in an October 15 InvestmentNews report, suggest that these hybrid relationships represent a potentially significant vulnerability for financial advisory firms seeking to preserve long-term client loyalty.

The Coalition Greenwich Voice of Client – 2026 Wealth Study found that 15% of hybrid investors were actively considering or would consider switching their primary financial advisor, compared with 9% of investors who exclusively use professional advisory services. That six-percentage-point difference represents a 67% greater relative likelihood of considering an advisor change.

The distinction is important because the research measures stated willingness to consider switching rather than actual client departures. Nevertheless, the findings identify a segment of affluent investors whose relationships with professional advisors may be more vulnerable to competitive alternatives.

The study arrives as wealth management companies continue adapting to the growth of low-cost online brokerage platforms, commission-free securities trading, and digital financial services that give investors greater control over their portfolios. Although the underlying Coalition Greenwich research was published on October 6, its retention implications received renewed industry attention through InvestmentNews coverage on October 15.

The research suggests that wealth managers face a more complicated competitive environment than one in which clients simply choose between professional advice and independent investing. Many affluent households increasingly expect to use both approaches simultaneously, creating opportunities for financial institutions that can accommodate different investment preferences within a coordinated service relationship.

Coalition Greenwich reported that approximately 67% of affluent consumers used a financial advisor in 2026, while roughly 54% used self-directed investment accounts. The overlap illustrates how professional guidance and independent investment management coexist within a substantial portion of the affluent market.

For the purposes of the research, affluent consumers were defined as investors with between $100,000 and $5 million in investable assets. The broader study incorporated feedback from more than 5,000 individual investors, including affluent, high-net-worth, and ultra-high-net-worth households. The report placed particular analytical emphasis on investors with between $2 million and $5 million in investable assets to better isolate differences associated with advisory preferences.

The research covered more than 60 named wealth service providers and drew on surveys, panels, and investor interviews. Its definition of self-directed investing included retail investment accounts maintained with major brokerage platforms such as Fidelity, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, Merrill Edge, and Robinhood.

One of the study’s most consequential findings concerns the characteristics of investors maintaining both types of accounts. Conventional assumptions frequently associate self-directed trading with younger customers, higher risk tolerance, and limited interest in traditional wealth management. Coalition Greenwich found that the actual demographic picture is considerably more nuanced.

According to the research, investors using self-directed accounts and those relying exclusively on financial advisors have an average age of approximately 63. Their overall risk profiles are also broadly comparable, although hybrid investors demonstrate the highest appetite for risk among the groups examined.

These results suggest that the hybrid investing model is not confined to younger investors experimenting with mobile trading applications. It also extends to established affluent households whose financial circumstances may include retirement planning, tax management, estate considerations, and substantial accumulated investment assets.

That demographic profile increases the importance of the retention issue for advisory businesses. Older affluent investors may hold relationships developed over many years, potentially involving multiple accounts and complex financial planning arrangements. Losing such clients could affect not only investment-management fees but also opportunities to provide retirement income planning, estate coordination, and other professional services.

The study also identified differences in investors’ perceptions of financial advice. Hybrid clients were generally more sensitive to costs and less convinced of the value of comprehensive advisory relationships than investors relying entirely on professional managers.

While a majority of advisor-only clients indicated a preference for working with a financial professional capable of addressing investment, insurance, banking, and tax needs holistically, fewer than half of hybrid clients expressed the same preference.

This finding points to a central challenge for traditional wealth managers: demonstrating the economic value of comprehensive planning when clients can independently obtain investment products, market information, and portfolio-management tools at relatively low cost.

Hybrid investors were also three times as likely as advisor-only investors to express openness to automated investment advice. That greater receptiveness to robo-advisory services could create additional competition for traditional financial advisory businesses, particularly where clients view professionally managed portfolios as insufficiently differentiated from lower-cost digital alternatives.

However, the research does not establish that hybrid investors universally reject professional advice. Their willingness to maintain existing advisory relationships indicates that many continue to value human expertise while choosing to manage selected investments independently.

Coalition Greenwich identified several motivations behind the decision to maintain both advisor-led and self-directed accounts. Some investors are unconvinced that comprehensive professional advice delivers sufficient value relative to its cost. Others are particularly sensitive to fees and prefer controlling a portion of their investments directly.

Another group enjoys researching companies, selecting securities, and participating in financial markets. For these investors, independent trading may represent a personal interest rather than dissatisfaction with their primary advisor. Self-directed accounts can also provide access to investments, including certain cryptocurrency holdings, that clients may not want or be able to maintain within their professionally managed portfolios.

A separate category consists of clients whose independent accounts reflect concerns about existing advisory relationships. These investors may be dissatisfied with investment performance, communication, responsiveness, service quality, or the available range of financial products.

For advisors, distinguishing among these motivations is essential. An investor who independently manages a small stock portfolio for personal enjoyment presents a different retention risk from a client who begins transferring substantial assets away from an advisory relationship because of persistent service concerns.

The study therefore cautions against interpreting every self-directed investment account as evidence of an impending client departure. Such an approach could produce unnecessary intervention, damage client trust, or encourage advisors to prioritize asset consolidation over investors’ actual financial objectives.

Instead, Coalition Greenwich recommends building relationships in which clients feel comfortable discussing investments held both within and outside their primary advisory accounts.

That transparency can improve the quality of financial planning by giving advisors a more complete understanding of household assets, portfolio concentrations, liquidity requirements, investment risks, and longer-term financial goals.

It can also help advisors identify opportunities to strengthen existing relationships without necessarily requiring every asset to be transferred to a professionally managed account.

The relationship between advisors and clients becomes particularly important when financial professionals change employers. Coalition Greenwich found that 20% of hybrid investors were not at all likely to move their assets with an advisor who joined another firm, compared with 11% of advisor-only investors.

This difference has implications for financial advisor recruitment and the economics of wealth management firms. Recruiting an experienced advisor is often partly justified by the expectation that established client relationships will generate recurring revenue at the new institution.

If hybrid investors are less inclined to follow advisors between firms, the financial value of those relationships may prove less portable than conventional recruitment assumptions suggest. Advisory firms evaluating potential hires may therefore need to look more closely at the composition of client relationships and the extent to which investors maintain meaningful assets outside their primary advisory arrangements.

The findings also raise questions about how firms should measure the strength of their existing client relationships. Traditional indicators such as account tenure, assets under management, and frequency of advisor contact may not fully capture a client’s willingness to transfer assets, reconsider fees, or explore competing services.

A household might maintain a longstanding advisory relationship while gradually directing new investment contributions toward an independent brokerage account. Although the advisor would retain the existing client relationship, the firm could lose opportunities to increase its share of that household’s investable assets.

Such developments would not necessarily appear immediately in conventional client-retention statistics. However, over time, slower asset growth and diminished participation in new investment decisions could reduce the economic value of otherwise stable advisory relationships.

Coalition Greenwich recommends a structured approach to addressing these risks, beginning with identifying assets held outside the primary advisory relationship. Advisors are encouraged to understand why clients maintain those accounts, demonstrate the value of their professional services, and monitor possible indications of dissatisfaction.

The recommended approach places particular emphasis on discussing advisory fees and the benefits of comprehensive planning. Advisors may need to explain how their services contribute beyond investment selection, including tax-aware portfolio coordination, retirement planning, risk management, and financial decision-making.

For clients already comfortable managing investments independently, the value proposition may depend less on promising superior investment returns and more on helping households avoid fragmented financial decisions.

For example, investments maintained across several institutions can complicate oversight of overall asset allocation. An investor might unknowingly accumulate similar market exposures through an advisor-managed portfolio and separate self-directed accounts.

Without a consolidated understanding of household investments, financial advisors may also have difficulty assessing liquidity needs, taxable investment activity, or the interaction between independent trading decisions and long-term financial plans.

These considerations demonstrate why outside accounts can represent both a business challenge and a planning opportunity. Understanding assets held elsewhere can enable advisors to offer more relevant guidance while respecting clients’ preferences for maintaining independent investment control.

At the institutional level, the study suggests that wealth management companies should examine whether their existing products, platforms, and service models adequately accommodate hybrid clients.

Some investors may maintain accounts at competing firms because their primary wealth manager does not offer sufficiently flexible self-directed investment services. Others may seek lower-cost investment options that are unavailable through their current advisory relationship.

Coalition Greenwich consequently recommends that firms consider offering their own self-directed brokerage capabilities or lower-cost digital advisory alternatives. Although such products could create concerns about shifting assets away from higher-fee advisory services, the research argues that independent investing has become an established part of the wealth management marketplace.

The commercial question for firms is whether they would prefer to accommodate those preferences internally or allow clients to place additional assets with competing financial institutions.

An integrated offering could help firms maintain broader relationships with affluent households, even when investors choose different service models for different portions of their assets.

However, developing such capabilities involves strategic trade-offs. Providing low-cost investment accounts alongside full-service advisory offerings may complicate pricing structures and require firms to demonstrate clearer differences between basic investment access and comprehensive financial advice.

Institutions may also need to invest in technology capable of presenting information across multiple accounts, improving advisor visibility, and supporting coordinated financial planning. These investments could increase operating costs before producing measurable improvements in client retention.

The research suggests that those decisions should begin with understanding why individual clients use outside accounts rather than assuming that a single platform strategy will address every investor’s needs.

The survey findings also have implications for the competitive positioning of independent registered investment advisors and larger diversified financial institutions. Firms with broad digital capabilities may be better positioned to provide different account types under one organizational relationship, while specialist advisors may compete through personalized service and planning expertise.

Neither approach guarantees client loyalty. The study’s central message is that the quality of the advisory relationship depends partly on whether clients believe the services they receive justify their costs and address their broader financial needs.

Importantly, the Coalition Greenwich findings represent reported investor preferences and intentions rather than observed future behavior. The research does not demonstrate that 15% of hybrid investors will actually switch advisors, nor does it establish that opening a self-directed account directly causes a decline in client loyalty.

The 67% relative difference should therefore be interpreted as an indicator of greater stated switching consideration, not a forecast of future client attrition. Similarly, the study’s cross-sectional findings do not independently establish how rapidly the hybrid segment has grown from previous years.

Those distinctions matter when translating research into business decisions. Wealth management firms evaluating retention strategies will need to consider their own client data, service economics, and patterns of asset movement before determining how extensively to modify their operating models.

Nevertheless, the findings provide evidence that investors’ relationships with financial institutions are becoming less exclusive. Professional advice remains widely used among affluent households, but a substantial portion of those investors also want opportunities to control specific investment decisions themselves.

For advisors, the challenge is to maintain relevance in relationships where professional management is only one component of a client’s financial activity. For wealth management companies, it is to preserve long-term revenue while adapting products and services to accommodate increasingly flexible investor preferences.

The research ultimately points toward a retention strategy based on transparency, differentiated advice, and a more complete understanding of client finances. Rather than treating self-directed investing as a direct competitor to professional advice in every case, wealth managers may benefit from recognizing when the two approaches can coexist within a sustainable relationship.

As competition for affluent household assets continues, firms that understand the motivations of hybrid investors may be better positioned to identify genuine relationship risks, improve client engagement, and maintain their share of investors’ financial assets.

The broader implication is that retaining affluent clients may increasingly depend not on controlling every investment account, but on demonstrating why professional advice remains valuable even when investors have the tools and confidence to manage substantial portions of their wealth independently.