American households are consolidating their relationships with retail saving and investing firms as one-stop shopping gathers momentum, Hearts & Wallets reported Wednesday.
This year, total saving/investing relationships fell to 323 million from a peak of 351 million in 2023, according to the research. Today, a fifth of households uses four or more firms — stores, in the researchers' parlance — a shopping pattern twice as common as a decade ago, yet average stores-per-household shrank to 2.4 from 2.7 two years ago.
Households with $5 million or more in investable assets pulled back most in average stores/household, now at 3.9, down from 4.5 in 2018.
Hearts & Wallets said the increase in households using only one store, which is visible across all investable asset segments, signals consolidation, as consumers become less inclined to juggle multiple stores.
Year over year, the portion of households in the $1 million-to-$5 million range with only one store rose 11 percentage points to 22%, while $5 million-plus households with one store jumped 13 points to 22%.
“Firms that want to leverage the one-stop-shopping trend must offer all the account types to satisfy investor needs, including taxable brokerage,” Laura Varas, founder and CEO of Hearts & Wallets, said in a statement. “Successful consolidation initiatives will support marketing calls-to-action with tangible processes.”
The report examines firms where consumers have saving and investing accounts and the lending and insurance accounts alongside, drawing from fields within the Investor Quantitative Database. The latest wave was fielded from July 17 to Aug. 9 with 5,981 U.S. households.
Top investing stores exceed industry averages to set the competitive bar on loyalty metrics, according to the report. Industry average customer intent to invest more, or ITIM, which indicates potential for future flows from the existing base, is 18% of all customers and 31% of customers already using each firm as primary/secondary.
LTR, or industry average likelihood to recommend — a better measure of advocacy than ITIM, which requires the ability to invest more — is 26% of all customers. The industry average Hearts & Wallets loyalty score, which combines high LTR and ITIM, is 25% of all customers.
The high trust industry average is 27% of all customers. Two firms exceed the industry average for high trust by an index greater than 150. Nine of the top 25 nationally branded investing stores also exceed industry average, but to lesser degrees.
See the accompanying gallery for the 10 financial services firms that enjoy the highest customer trust. Trust levels range from 10 (very high trust) to 0 (very little trust).
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