Capgemini report finds just 11% of Canadian wealthy clients describe their experience as seamless, the lowest of any market measured
Canada's millionaire population grew by 30,000 in 2025 as a surging stock market and rising commodity prices drove HNWI wealth higher.
But the country's wealth management industry is falling further behind client expectations than almost anywhere else in the world, according to Capgemini's World Wealth Report 2026.
The 30th annual edition of the report found that Canadian HNWI wealth climbed 8.2% over the year, with the population rising 6.7%. The TSX surged nearly 30%, its second-best performance since 2000, driven by strong mining returns as commodity prices moved sharply higher, alongside steady energy prices and support from Bank of Canada rate cuts.
That performance kept pace with a strong global picture where HNWI wealth grew 8.7% to reach a record US$98.3 trillion, the largest single-year increase since 2018, with the global millionaire population expanding by nearly 2 million to 25.3 million individuals.
Canada's southern neighbour led North America's 9.9% wealth growth, with the US adding 736,000 new millionaires (more than any other single market) to reach an HNWI population of 8.7 million.
Asia-Pacific led all regions with 10.5% wealth growth and a 9.4% rise in population, as semiconductor demand boosted regional stock markets. Japan added 436,000 millionaires over the year and China added 154,000. Europe rebounded strongly after a difficult 2024, recording 8% wealth growth and a 6.5% rise in population. The Middle East was the sole region to contract, with HNWI wealth declining 1.5% as lower oil prices squeezed fiscal revenues and regional conflict weighed on Gulf economies.
Outpacing other segments
Ultra-HNWIs, defined as those with $30 million or more in investable assets, outpaced every other wealth segment for the second consecutive year, posting 9.7% wealth growth and a 9.4% rise in population.
The top 1% of HNWIs now account for 34.8% of total HNWI wealth. Their advantage stems partly from greater exposure to private equity, hedge funds, and other alternatives that remain largely inaccessible to lower wealth tiers.
Canadian HNWIs diverged from their global peers in how they positioned portfolios over the year.
While global equity allocations rose three percentage points to 25%, Canadian HNWIs held equity allocations steady at 26% as of January 2026. The more notable shift was in real estate, where Canadian allocations climbed from 15% in January 2025 to 21% in January 2026, a move that may partly reflect HNWIs taking advantage of lower property prices in recent years.
Globally, fixed income rose two percentage points to 20% as bond markets delivered their strongest returns since 2020, while alternative investments slipped three points to 12%, compressed by faster appreciation in public equities rather than any pullback in demand; two in three HNWIs still say they intend to increase their private equity exposure.
Despite the headline wealth figures, the report identifies a deepening structural problem at traditional firms. Between 2022 and 2025, a conservative estimate of $1.5 trillion in new assets under advice flowed to competitors rather than to established wealth managers, as clients spread their relationships across a growing roster of providers.
"In our 30 years of tracking global wealth, 2025 represents an exceptional moment for the size of the world's population of high-net worth individuals and the assets they control," said Kartik Ramakrishnan, CEO of Capgemini's financial services business. "HNWIs now have access to more asset classes across markets, along with greater options in terms of advisors and expertise. For the industry, this is a clear inflection point: between 2022 and 2025, an estimated USD 1.5 trillion in new assets flowed to competitors of traditional firms."
Shifting preferences
In Canada, 56% of HNWIs worked with a single firm in 2019; by 2025 that figure had dropped to 31%. The proportion working with four to six firms rose from 13% to 21% over the same period.
While the pace of fragmentation is somewhat slower than the global average (where exclusive relationships fell from 39% to 19% and multi-firm usage doubled to 25%), the direction is the same and the pressure on incumbents is real.
Alternative investment access is a key driver. A full 89% of Canadian HNWIs work with multiple firms specifically to gain better access to alternatives, in line with the global average of 88%. Beyond product access, Canadian wealth management executives identify longevity planning and health-linked wealth solutions as the top priority capability for HNWIs, cited by 80% of executives surveyed.
Meanwhile, the segmentation practices underpinning the client experience have not kept pace.
Every Canadian wealth management firm surveyed segments clients primarily by wealth bands and relies on traditional risk profiles, limiting the ability to tailor advice to increasingly diverse client needs. Some 80% of Canadian wealth management executives acknowledge their firm lacks a unified client view, well above the global executive average of 60%.
The result is a client experience gap that is wider in Canada than almost anywhere else.
Just 11% of Canadian HNWIs describe their advisory experience as seamless and personalized, below the already-low global average of 17% and the US figure of 12%. More than half of Canadian HNWIs say they have had to restate their objectives and preferences multiple times to the same firm, above both the global average of 42% and the US figure of 47%.
In Canada, 36% of advisor time is consumed by operational tasks. Three quarters of Canadian advisors want AI-enabled systems to automate that routine work, and 66% want access to an integrated ecosystem of specialists spanning both financial and non-financial services.
The report estimates that AI-driven capabilities could free approximately 50% of operational RM time, redirecting it toward client engagement and coordination.
When firms do get the client experience right, the commercial returns are measurable. When Canadian relationship managers effectively coordinate specialist teams, 39% of HNWIs recommend their firm to others and 43% would consolidate more wealth with a provider offering integrated specialist access.
What needs to change?
Capgemini argues that closing the gap requires three interconnected changes to the operating model.
First, firms must broaden access to alternative investments and extend services into tax, estate, and retirement planning. Second, relationship managers must shift from execution toward orchestration, coordinating specialists across disciplines rather than handling requests directly. Third, augmented intelligence — AI that sharpens rather than replaces human judgment — needs to be embedded as the foundational layer across every client interaction.
The report presents a phased roadmap for this transformation, moving through three time horizons:
- In the near term, firms should unify client data and deploy AI tools to enable proactive advisor engagement.
- In the medium term, the focus shifts to embedding alternatives as a core portfolio capability and repositioning lead advisors as experience orchestrators.
- At full maturity, the model delivers autonomous portfolio construction, AI-enabled estate and tax planning integrated into client journeys, and firm-wide institutional knowledge that endures across advisor transitions and client generations.
Ramakrishnan framed the challenge as one requiring decisive action: "Clients, including younger HNWIs benefiting from wealth transfers, are seeking more: greater product access, deeper personalization, and advice that truly reflects their lifestyle. Firms that can deliver this at scale, powered by AI-enabled insights and capabilities, will define the next era of wealth management."
