Scotiabank head of Global Wealth Management Jacqui Allard.Hallie Arden/The Globe and Mail
Trade war disputes with the United States are creating unexpected opportunities for Bank of Nova Scotia’s BNS-T wealth management businesses as financial advisers field calls from clients, including some who live abroad and are seeking advice.
Volatile markets and uncertainty about the U.S. economy are heightening the demand for advice as Scotiabank looks to amplify its wealth management operations domestically, and internationally.
“Any time you have a period of market volatility like we’ve seen, is when you need advisers out talking to clients to calm fears, explain how portfolios are diversified and keep them focused on the long term, not the short term,” Scotiabank head of Global Wealth Management Jacqui Allard said during an interview in Toronto.
In recent months, Ms. Allard has travelled more extensively to Mexico and South American markets, where she oversees Scotiabank’s wealth and asset management business in over a dozen countries. It is just part of her role at Canada’s fourth-largest bank, where she also leads teams in Canadian wealth management and the bank’s global asset management and insurance businesses.
Advice has become the anchor of financial services for Canada’s largest banks since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadians have reached out to investment advisers when tumultuous markets have rattled nerves, asking whether they should consider moving investment dollars.
The bank doesn’t operate a wealth business in the U.S., but it enables Canadian-based advisers to advise Canadian clients on their U.S-domiciled investments. And while Scotia isn’t offering blanket advice to investors, the relationships are a foot in the door to ease any growing concerns that may arise for clients in today’s uncertain markets.
Some Canadians who live south of the border, but who have maintained banking relationships with their advisers here, have even asked for advice on whether they should transfer money back to Canada – or whether to return home entirely.
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It’s been less than two years since Ms. Allard replaced Glen Gowland, who led global wealth for nearly five years before he became Scotiabank’s vice-chair in Jan. 2024. He has since retired.
At that time, investors weren’t seeking advice on the impact of U.S politics. Rather, when Ms. Allard stepped onto the stage during her first Scotiabank investor day in December, 2023, the bank’s new chief executive officer, Scott Thomson, was still putting his own mark on the bank’s strategy.
During her presentation to shareholders, Ms. Allard confidently laid out the bank’s ambitious five-year plan to increase the number of financial advisers on staff while ramping up sales of retail investment funds to existing clients in Canada. She also unveiled plans to launch a wealth management strategy in Mexico and the Caribbean, particularly for high-net-worth clients.
With more than $396-billion in assets under management, Scotia Global Wealth Management consists of several major divisions: Scotia Global Asset Management – which houses the bank’s portfolio managers and investment fund business, a wealth advisory and private banking business in Canada, and an international wealth division that manages about $43-billion in assets for clients outside Canada. The international business is one of the bank’s fastest-growing, increasing earnings by more than 20 per cent last year.
Over the past decade, wealth management has become a top priority for Canada’s largest banks as more than $1-trillion in personal wealth is set to be inherited by younger generations. To capture that wealth, banks have had to retool their brokerage and financial planning businesses to offer more than just advice on stocks.
Scotia’s Global Wealth Management arm has increasingly become a major profit driver for the bank. Last quarter, it posted higher profits, up 17 per cent year over year to $407-million, as of June 30.
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Now, just 20 months into her role, Ms. Allard and her team have started to deliver on the promises she made on stage. They have boosted the bank’s focus on financial planning, doubled the number of financial advisers and investment specialists in Canada to nearly 1,300 individuals, and elevated Scotia Smart Investor, an online financial planning tool for do-it-yourself investors that has brought in an additional $3.2-billion in investment fund sales to the bank’s asset management division.
But she is not declaring victory just yet.
Scotiabank continues to have the smallest number of investment advisers compared to its bank peers, as well as the lowest percentage of clients who have purchased a bank mutual fund product.
However, Ms. Allard is optimistic that will change in time.
“We’ve been investing in our advisory force and that is really starting to pick up speed and bear fruit,” she said.
With close to 30 years in the business, Ms. Allard is no stranger to running wealth and asset operations in and outside Canada. Prior to joining Scotia, she was the executive vice-president responsible for consumer lending and international banking businesses at Royal Bank of Canada, which included RBC’s Caribbean Banking and U.S. cross-border banking business.
Before RBC, she was the chief information officer of the investment division at Manulife Financial Corp., and president of Manulife Asset Management Canada.
In November, 2024, Ms. Allard’s current role expanded to include oversight of Scotiabank’s global insurance businesses.
In Canada, the wealth management arm has multiple advice channels that cater to different levels and types of investors. It includes Scotia iTrade, the bank’s trading platform for self-directed investors, securities dealer Scotia McLeod, which advises affluent and high-net-worth clients, and Scotia Private Investment Counsel and Jarislowsky Fraser Private Wealth, which offer institutional investment mandates to clients with $5-million or more in investible assets. In 2018, the bank added MD Financial Management – a lucrative wealth management business that specializes in advice for Canadian physicians and their families.
The platform also includes private banking, estates and trusts, insurance and financial planning services as part of what the Scotiabank calls its “total wealth” approach.
In 2024, the bank invested in Conquest Planning Inc., an independent financial and retirement planning technology that is gaining popularity among advisers who work at some of the largest banks and independent wealth managers.
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Along with adding to the financial planning team, the technology helped the bank increase the number of financial plans being completed by advisers by 30 per cent year-over-year.
Now, the bank has started to roll out Conquest to its international markets, Ms. Allard says. And the timing could not be better as clients are seeking more advice around economic uncertainty.
For example, advisers have had some interest from international clients in using Canada to house their offshore assets.
“Depending on the market, these clients have a significant amount of their assets offshore – anywhere from 40 per cent to 60 per cent, and in some cases 80 per cent,” Ms. Allard said. “Historically the offshore market of choice for a Latin American is the United States.”
International wealth is a much newer business segment for the bank and one that was built through a series of acquisitions in different geographies, she adds. Ten years ago, the bank launched its “total wealth” strategy in Canada, which creates full financial plans for clients and involves estate, insurance and tax specialists to map out short- and long-term goals.
That strategy is now being rolled out to certain segments of the more than 12 million existing retail and commercial clients that Scotiabank international banking serves in nearly 1,000 branches outside Canada. The regions represent about US$6.1-trillion in wealth, according to the Boston Consulting Group global wealth report.
In Canada, one of the biggest prospects for growth is to cross-sell Scotiabank investment products to more existing clients.
Currently, Scotia Global Asset Management is the fourth-largest retail fund manager in Canada. The assets under management are not broken out separately by the bank, but the majority of the assets are held by clients who bought Scotiabank funds through independent advisers outside the bank. “We have the lowest penetration of our own retail client base in terms of investments,” Ms. Allard said. “So, there is massive opportunity there.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Glen Gowland is Scotiabank’s current vice-chair. This version has been corrected.