Advisers optimistic on business growth: Natixis IM
Australian financial advisers believe they will grow their business by 5% this year and 11% over the next three years, according to research by Natixis Investment Managers.
The 2022 Global Survey of Financial Professionals, a survey of 2,700 financial professionals across 16 countries including Australia, found these figures compared to a global average of 5% and 10% expected business growth respectively.
Natixis IM country head Australia and New Zealand, Louise Watson, said: “Despite a challenging operating environment, financial advisers are optimistic about the business growth they can achieve and say they will increasingly look to technology, demonstrating value to their clients, client retention and establishing relationships with the next generation as the most important factors to strengthening their business over the next year”.
Interestingly, Australian financial advisers said winning new clients was not the easiest way to grow, with 34% (49% globally) of those surveyed seeing it as the most challenging of all growth drivers.
Instead, 35% (45% globally) believed success would depend on their ability to build relationships with next generation investors despite it being regarded as a time-consuming process by more than half of those surveyed (62% vs 52% globally).
Acknowledging that market performance would probably not provide the tailwind it had delivered over much of the past decade, financial professionals said they would look to win new assets from new clients.
Australian financial advisers were less likely to see other factors, such as streamlining their client base (28% vs 25% globally) or succession planning (17% vs 24% globally), as critical to their success.
Rather, Australian financial advisers highlighted access to technology as the most important factor to strengthening their business next year (53% vs 38% globally), naming cost as the biggest challenge.
While market projections looked positive, rising interest rates were the top concern for Australian financial advisers (61% vs 49% globally) followed by inflation (51% vs 57% globally) and geopolitical conflicts (49% vs 56.5% globally).
“Against this backdrop, financial advisers will be working hard with their clients to consider the right asset allocations and portfolio construction to achieve their investment goals whilst also diversifying their investment portfolios,“ said Watson.
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