"Is my current allocation ratio appropriate?" "Why does the market fall/rise?" "Should I redeem the products I hold?" "What should I buy?"... Recently, with the market trading sentiment soaring and investors rushing in, the increased volatility in the stock and bond markets has once again made the investment experience "nerve-wracking." They express their doubts on various platforms.
As market volatility increases, how to properly allocate assets has become the primary challenge for individual investors. However, the reporter noticed that in this round of market recovery, there is little promotion of star fund managers by institutions, but the voice of fund investment consultants is gradually rising.
In the industry's view, after the decline in reputation in the early stage, more and more institutions have begun to pay attention to the needs and experience of investors. At the same time, against the backdrop of the ongoing public offering fee reduction reform and the normalization of the fund investment consultant pilot, the industry's discussion on the transformation of buy-side investment consultants has also gradually increased in recent years.
"Firstly, it's about understanding what you want and making long-term plans. Some investors will say, my needs are very simple, 'just make money.' But this is actually an outcome." At the recently held "2024 CICC Wealth 1018 Press Conference," Qiao Bo, the executive head of the CICC Wealth Product and Solution Tribe, the head of the investment management team, and the managing director, said that the true meaning of buy-side investment consultants is not just about fund products, but a service model and product research system centered around customer needs and interests.
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The fifth anniversary of the fund investment consultant pilot
Recently, with the dense introduction of favorable policies and the high sentiment in the A-share market, the issuance of new funds has also accelerated. Wind data shows that, calculated from the start of the subscription, as of October 20, 61 funds have started subscriptions since the beginning of the month, two-thirds of which are equity products (including stock and mixed funds). In addition, there are still 119 funds in the approved but not yet issued state within the year.
As of October 20, there are a total of 122,000 public funds in the market, with a total asset scale breaking through the 31 trillion yuan mark, reaching 31.28 trillion yuan. However, different from around 2020, the presence of star fund managers in this round of the market is not strong.
In the view of industry insiders, it was often said in the past that "choosing a fund is choosing a fund manager." At that time, under the halo of performance and personal charm, a large number of star fund managers were born, and many investors have also been "fans." But after three years of market "torture," many investors have already lost their charm.
But after losing charm, what is still in front of investors are tens of thousands of fund products, as well as tens of thousands of private fund managers and other diverse choices. Superimposed with the reputation backlash caused by the previous "star-making," institutions no longer play the personal card, but pay more and more attention to the needs and experience of investors, and the value of fund investment consulting business has once again attracted market attention.
Fund investment consulting is not a new business. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) launched the fund investment consulting pilot as early as October 2019. After five years of business exploration, the number of pilot institutions has increased from the first batch of 18 to 60, covering banks, securities firms, fund companies, and third-party sales, and other types of institutions. The scale of fund investment consulting business is also growing steadily.According to data from CICC Wealth, as of September 2024, the "China 50," "Micro 50," "Public Mutual 50," "Stock 50," and "ETF 50" buy-side advisory systems that the organization has built over the past five years have cumulatively reached a product allocation scale of nearly 160 billion yuan. The cumulative signed customer assets of the buy-side advisory have exceeded 240 billion yuan, and the service has accompanied more than 350,000 person-times of customers to complete allocation planning.
"The significance of the fund advisory business is to break the 'seller's advisory' model, using this business to guide customers towards diversified, long-term investment, and financial planning oriented by goals. Based on this characteristic, the fund advisory business is more suitable for novice investors who have unsatisfactory autonomous trading and lack clear investment logic and methods," said a research person in the securities industry.
In fact, with the growth of residents' wealth and the enhancement of investment awareness, investors' demand for professional and personalized wealth management services is becoming increasingly urgent. The model of "someone sells, no one manages" has also been repeatedly dissatisfied by investors. Coupled with the ongoing public offering fee reform and the regularization of the fund advisory pilot, discussions on the transformation of buy-side advisory in the industry have also gradually increased in recent years.

At the end of September this year, the Central Financial Office and the China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting Medium and Long-term Funds into the Market," which once again proposed "to steadily reduce the comprehensive fee rate of the public fund industry and promote the regularization of the public fund advisory pilot." This also means that the fund advisory team is expected to expand on a large scale, and the competition in the advisory market will become more intense.
At the same time, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) initiated the public offering industry fee reform in July last year. The first two stages of reducing the fees of existing products and standardizing the transaction commissions of public funds have been completed, and the third stage will be completed by the end of this year. In the third stage, the CSRC will focus on standardizing the fees in the sales link.
The most direct impact of the fee reform is to reduce the investment costs of the holders, which to some extent enhances the sense of gain for investors and attracts more funds from outside the market. Data shows that with all the reform measures implemented, the comprehensive fee rate of public funds will decrease by 18%, saving investors about 45 billion yuan per year.
There are many views in the industry that as the reduction of fees and commissions is implemented, the public funds, securities companies, wealth management institutions, bank wealth management, and fund distribution institutions involved in the reform will jointly give benefits to investors. This move will accelerate the transformation from seller's advisory to buyer's advisory, empowering the buyer's advisory business with research and filling the performance gap.
The investment philosophy of "buyer's advisory," which starts from the needs of customers, allows the customer service method to shift from traditional product sales to the full life cycle of advisory services. At present, securities firms are generally actively promoting the transformation of wealth management, aiming to gradually transform from the past seller's advisory to the buyer's advisory. The current fund advisory model is an important exploration of the buyer's advisory model.
"The core value of the advisory is to enhance the sense of gain for customers," said a person in the fund industry in South China. The poor sense of gain for fund investors is fundamentally due to the inconsistency of interests among asset management institutions, sales channels, and investors. Only by transforming the product sales model of "separating the interests of managers and investors" into the investment advisory model of "linking the interests of managers and investors" can we urge fund companies to truly invest, sell, and serve from the perspective of fund investors, and change the problems of formal investor education, lack of investor service, and poor holding experience for fund investors."True buy-side investment consulting is far more than just fund products; it is a service model and product research system centered around customer needs and interests," Qiao Bo also stated. Standing under the new connotation of buy-side investment consulting, there is still a need to focus on three new propositions. "Firstly, it is about understanding what you want and making long-term plans," Qiao Bo believes that the starting point of wealth planning is to help clients understand their own needs, ensuring that their actual holdings match their investment goals and risk preferences.
Secondly, it is about dynamic tracking and flexible response. Wealth management will accompany the entire life journey. Through long-term dynamic tracking and adjustments, it will help investors accumulate compound returns over a long period of time. In addition, there is professional coverage and a global perspective. The significance of cross-asset and cross-regional asset classes for the overall portfolio configuration should be valued.
So, how to apply the concept of buy-side investment consulting to individual trading business, forming a "circle" of buy-side services from the "point" of trading services? Li Wanqing, the head of the Individual Trading Solutions team at the CICC Wealth Product and Solution Tribe, said, "This closed loop allows us to no longer be entangled in the sales of each 'point', but to start from the whole, providing customers with a 360-degree coherent, systematic, and scientific trading solution."
Although the investment consulting business has moved from the "novice period" of pilot programs to the regular operation phase, from the past situation, the phenomenon of "focusing on investment and neglecting consultation" is still quite common, and investors' understanding of the advantages and roles of fund investment consulting is limited. Zhou Jian, the head of the Wealth Planning team at the CICC Wealth Product and Solution Tribe, believes that the satisfaction of wealth management needs is like Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. After the advisory services at the previous level are fully satisfied, customers will naturally tend to move to a higher level.
Specifically, the "advisory service pyramid" of buy-side investment consulting is divided into five levels: information consulting, product consulting, behavioral consulting, planning consulting, and mindset consulting. For example, at the level of information consulting, it presents objective and accurate data, as well as professional insights beyond the data; at the product consulting level, it provides detailed buy-side perspective information disclosure throughout the entire process of investment before, during, and after.