Investors must have confidence in the financial system overall, and trust is especially important for investment management, since client outcomes manifest only over a future horizon. Industry leaders must understand the drivers of investor trust so they can deliver the most value.

In the 2022 CFA Institute Investor Trust Study, the fifth in our biennial series, we found that trust levels in financial services among retail and institutional investors have increased significantly since 2020. Institutional investors—such as insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, and others—generally have high trust levels in the firms that manage their assets and are satisfied with the value these firms provide. Retail investors also express high trust levels overall, though trust is lower for them than among institutional investors, and importantly, satisfaction differs between retail investors with an adviser and those without an adviser.