As the first to learn English in her family when they moved to the U.S. from Colombia, Catalina Franco-Cicero shouldered the responsibility of writing household-expense checks for her mom. Today, as a financial advisor at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, Florida, she taps into that early experience to help clients from Latin America who have immigrated to the US.
Franco-Cicero, who arrived stateside when she was age 8, is a planner who focuses on first-generation immigrant and first-generation American clients. Advisors like her help newcomers navigate not just saving for college and retirement, but also the cultural differences that come with growing wealth in a new country.
"Some of these clients have a significant amount of wealth," Franco-Cicero said. "They're highly skilled, educated and with businesses that were very lucrative (in their country of origin), and, like any other client, they just don't know what to do."
Immigrants comprised nearly one in four, or 23.1%, of all U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics workers in 2019, according to a
Anna N'Jie-Konte, the CEO of the virtual firm Dare to Dream Financial Planning, said that the wealth management industry fails to see first-generation immigrants as potential clients. N'Jie-Konte is a Puerto Rican/Gambian-American and most of her customers are from Asia, Latin America and Africa. She explained that most immigrants have investment properties or businesses but little by way of liquid assets, a shortfall that can initially deter advisors from courting them as clients.
"I talked to a client from Guyana who had 70 single family properties and a management company, but he only had $500,000 in a portfolio," N'Jie-Konte said. "He would not be a client that most advisors would go after, but he's somebody that needs advice because he has a complex estate and tax situation."
A
All advisors with a more geographically diverse clientele take into account the different perspectives their customers have on money. While Americans are more used to concepts like saving for retirement and investing in the stock market, many immigrants are more comfortable holding cash, gold, and real estate. Franco-Cicero explained that many of them come from countries with political and economic instability, making it hard for them to trust their finances to governments and markets.
"I have a couple of Argentinian and Cuba clients" for whom "not having their money accessible to them is something that's very scary — they have experienced having everything being taken away from them," Franco-Cicero said. "It's really critical to be aware of that."
David Li, a financial advisor at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, said he spends a lot of time helping his foreign-born clients understand the American capital markets so that they're more at ease when investing and less resistant to, for example, so-called productive debt, like a mortgage. Li leads a team on which 9 of its core members come from outside the U.S., from countries including the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Cuba and Iraq. The team's client base spans entrepreneurs to executives to multigenerational families.
"We have to work with our clients to make sure that we educate them in the full suite of offerings," Li said.
Marguerita M. Cheng, the founder and CEO of Blue Ocean Global Wealth, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, said she makes sure to always acknowledge that many of her foreign-born clients may be more "collectivist" when undertaking financial planning. So telling them to save for retirement, for example, can come across as being selfish. Cheng usually has to explain that they can both invest in themselves and send money to their family back in their countries. "You have to understand that the client is not just the one sitting across from you," Cheng said.
A
N'Jie-Konte said she has clients who were initially dismissed by other advisors who didn't agree with their personal value system of sending money to their families or owning investments in their countries of origin. "It's not our job as advisors to dictate what folks should prioritize," N'Jie-Konte said. "We should tell them if it's a bad decision, but we should not be setting the tone and the priorities."
Most advisors agree that diversity within the industry can help tackle this neglected client base. Blacks and Latinos account for just 4.1% of the more than 87,000 CFP professionals in the U.S, according to the latest data from CFP Board, which oversees the certified financial planner credential.
At the same time, foreign-born residents now represent 14% of the U.S. population, or approximately 44.5 million people, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data. Between 2015 and 2065, they are projected to account for 88% of the U.S. population increase, or 103 million people, as the nation grows to 441 million,
As such, "we need to make sure as advisors that we build the trust, and in order to build trust, you need to understand and be relatable," Li said. "I think people are going to embrace bilingual, trilingual, quadrilingual — all of these things are important."
It all points to growing demand in wealth management for advising first-generation immigrants.
"Everybody deserves financial health, regardless of your background," Franco-Cicero said.
"And if it makes it easier for you to talk to somebody that shares your culture, even better."
