People want financial advice that caters for specific life events rather than general Financial Planning, a report concluded.

Research commissioned by Pershing, a BNY Mellon company, also suggested that individuals would be willing to pay for high-quality digital communications.

And advisers and wealth managers were warned by the authors of the report that those who fail to meet the desired digital capabilities run the risk of losing clients.

The findings were published this week in a report called Digital Horizons: An Investor Perspective on When to Use Online Wealth Management Services and When Personal Advice is Needed.

The vast majority of the 1,002 mass affluent and high net worth UK individuals surveyed for the report sought financial advice correlating to a specific life change.

The most popular reasons were a career move (13% of respondents), location change (13%), marriage (9%), retirement (8%) or financing a property (8%).

Ileana Sodani, chief relationship officer of Pershing, said: “Advisers and wealth managers must cater for the most impactful life changes, which are not connected with the most obvious traditional retirement or investment planning needs.

“To keep clients for the long term, advisers must maintain engagement throughout the entire lifecycle, and take steps to refresh and renew relationships. Wealth managers need to recognise and deliver what younger clients expect of them or risk missing out.

“This of course is while continuing to focus and grow their traditional client base. The challenge for the future is to be more targeted for different demographic groups.”

Though more likely to change, younger wealthy individuals particularly valued the support of their provider in navigating major changes with the right advice, products, services, and digital tools.

They said they expect high-quality online services along with high-quality adviser interaction. Thirty-nine per cent of respondents under 35 years of age said their main interaction with their financial provider is through a named adviser who provides information and advice. This compared to just 21% of those over the age of 65, who mainly use a named adviser.