Trillions in Wealth Will Soon Change Hands, and 70% Will Go to Women. How Can You Help?
By Steve Cocheo, Senior Executive Editor at The Financial Brand
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Over the next decades, trillions of dollars will move from older generations to younger ones, representing both risk and opportunity to banks and credit unions. But a common blind spot may impact many institutions’ ability to hold onto inherited deposits and investments: The failure to recognize and meet the financial needs and preferences of women.
“Seventy percent of the wealth transfers that are going to happen over the next 30 years will be going to women,” according to Jean-Pierre Lacroix, president of strategic design firm Shikatani Lacroix Inc. This trend includes both surviving wives — men often go first — as well as women and children.
A common blind spot: Most institutions have little appreciation of how women’s expectations of financial advisors differs from men. And that knowledge gap will be a major problem as wealth transfers continue building to a crest between 15 and 20 years from now, Lacroix says.
“This is the time to start planning,” says Lacroix.
Need to Know:
- The opportunity: Most investors indicate that much of their existing investments are inherited, and many expect further to come, according to Shikatani Lacroix research.
- The risk: The same research indicates that 30% of inheritors switch providers when wealth transfer occurs.
- The reality: Banks that don’t build multigenerational relationships now face lost business in the future.
How Banks Could Miss the Coming Generational Wealth Transfer
Financial executives speak a good deal about personalization, “but they’re personalizing for products, not personalizing for people, aligning products and services for customer segments and giving them a sense that they understand the customers,” Lacroix says.
Key deficiency: Bankers fail to see essential differences between the way men and women relate to financial services, especially investments.
In fact, he says, many still ignore women as financial decision makers.
For many women, the problem comes down to lack of knowledge and lack of confidence.
These are solvable issues, Lacroix insists, but only if institutions recognize that they need to treat women differently than their husbands and sons — while also acknowledging that more women than ever remain single and manage their own affairs.
Key differences. “Women are more inquisitive. They like to see more options. They need to be walked through information, versus just being sent the information,” says Lacroix.
“Women ask more questions,” Lacroix continues, “and they are often really the ones managing funds in the home.”
Yet banks often treat women without recognition of that reality.
A personal episode: Lacroix and his wife, who live in Canada, are helping their daughter buy a condominium. Their experience has been typical, he says.
“The bank relationship is with my wife. I’ve only ever been in that bank once, when I signed for our line of credit. Yet every document that has been sent to us has had my name on it, not my wife’s. Every email was sent to me, not to my wife,” says Lacroix.
It’s 2026, Lacroix says, but this kind of behavior remains common. The result: A disconnect that can hurt banks now and that will hurt more when the next generation inherits.
Read more: Most Banks Reward Products, Not Relationships. It’s Costing Them
How to Improve Your Bank’s Ability to Relate to Women
What can banks do to remedy this situation now and for the future?
Recognize women’s pain points — wanting options, wanting explanations — and make it relatable.
Lacroix notes that money is a very emotional subject to most people. Resistance to the way something is put pours sand into the gears.
Solution 1: Lacroix says bankers should talk less and listen more. That can go a long way.
Solution 2: Put more women into branches in positions dealing with financial planning and wealth management.
Solution 3: Change your bank’s marketing template.
“Banks don’t market to women, they market to American families,” says Lacroix. “They market to small business owners, but they don’t market to women. You show me a bank that has a marketing campaign that talks to women. Very few banks do that.”
Failure to communicate. Look on the home page of most banks and credit unions and the imagery generally bears this out. Yet, because more women remain single, this suggests to some that the institutions don’t get them.
Read more: How Bank of Oklahoma’s ‘Brand Journalism’ Nurtures Customer Needs Instead of Selling Things
Make the Intergenerational Connection Before It’s Too Late
If step one to managing the wealth transfer is holding onto customers and their assets in the present — and maybe gaining some from less-adaptable competitors — how do institutions bridge to the inheriting generation of both women and men?
Market realities. Younger people have more and more financial options dangled before them every day, from other chartered financial institutions to nonbank providers like Wealthfront with its ubiquitous digital marketing and Robinhood on top of traditional competitors like Edward D. Jones and insurance companies. (Robinhood recently launched Robinhood Social, a platform enabling sharing of investment views and even actual trades.)
Surprisingly, the answer is right in front of you — ask customers who are accumulating wealth to introduce your institution to their children.
The names of children who are going to be inheriting accounts and assets are as close as the beneficiary list that customers fill out when opening accounts. But reaching out directly would be a massive faux pas. But asking permission to make contact can be the beginning of courting the next generation.
Another personal episode: Lacroix and his wife were recently involved in another family transaction that revealed their connection to two next generations. He says the couple would have happily made the introductions — but the bank failed to pick up on the opportunity.
Why banks flop at this: Lacroix blames this kind of missed opportunity on attitude and lack of training. Financial advisers too often take that title as a passive role, that they are a guru awaiting the queries of those seeking their wisdom.
To succeed, they have to stir in some sales initiative.
And they don’t have to wait for opportunity to present itself.
Key action: Life-stage transactions, such as mortgages, present opportunities to introduce the idea of financial planning and wealth management. But that means institutions have to staff up so advisors are on tap for such impromptu, introductory meetings. As in:
“You’re taking a big step, buying a home. Could I introduce you to Jane Smith, one of our wealth management advisors?
Read more: ‘The Branch Is Dead’ … Is Dead: Have We Reached National Branch Equilibrium?
Once You Make the Connection, Strengthen It
Even if your institution makes such an obvious connection, it’s the beginning of the beginning, not a slam dunk by any means.
Ditch stereotypes. Understanding the younger generation requires nuance. Lacroix says that it’s easy to assume that younger people lean into digital channels and obtain financial advice from apps and artificial intelligence.
However, his firm’s research finds an interesting trend. People — even younger ones — who use AI overwhelmingly also use financial advisors. They tend to use AI to ground themselves in finances and investments, to prepare for meetings with advisors.
Key strategy: Lean into “live.” Lacroix believes banks and credit unions should be focusing on meetings that bring the generations together physically. This includes both private sessions but also seminars that bring both benefactors and beneficiaries together.
To be clear, Lacroix isn’t advocating a baring of financial plans in such gatherings. They are an opportunity to improve the understanding of the entire family.
“It’s an opportunity for the advisor to build a relationship between the parents and the inheritor,” says Lacroix. That’s an investment the institution makes now, for its own future.
In his presentation Lacroix will explore four detailed office design options for facilitating meetings, from in-branch wealth management offices to free-standing wealth management centers.
Read selected previews about other sessions at The Financial Brand Forum 2026:
- Consumers are Using AI to Find Their Next Bank, But Many Still Don’t Trust Its Advice
- Why ‘No’ Is the Most Expensive Word in the Boardroom
- How Fintechs Disrupt Deposits to Acquire Primary Banking Relationships
- How Citizens Bank Is Blending AI with Classic Business Banking
- Storytelling Is Hot. But Is Your Bank Telling the Right Stories to the Right People?
