Edtech can simulate adviser-client scenario

There is significant opportunity for innovation with the educational technology or edtech space in financial advice, where augmented and virtual reality could replace textbooks to create practical, virtual experiences, according to Adviser Intelligence.

Adviser Intelligence founder and chief executive, Jacqui Henderson said simulating classroom knowledge and practical experience into a “virtual experience” would only improve the delivery of education to advisers even as the new education standards were set to become effective 1 January 2019.

“Can you imagine an adviser being educated via a real-life virtual client experience, simulating the different scenarios and conversations that take place at the coalface of financial advice?” Henderson said.

She drew an analogy to the car sales industry, and her acquaintance who owned a technology company that simulated various scenarios when selling cars.

“People at Toyota, instead of going through a sales program, they actually go through a digital augmented experience where they’re simulated through different customer experiences,” Henderson said.

“So a family trying to buy a new car, they actually simulate that, what to say, when to say things, all the actual content and information that’s required.”

The advice industry could apply this technology to simulate client experiences, different strategies, and communication techniques to deliver these strategies to different clients with different methods of learning abilities, such as visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic.

“So it’s kind of like how the adviser delivers financial advice can actually be simulated through these sorts of technologies. The technology’s there, it’s just really someone actually tackling this within our industry and creating the technology for it.”

Henderson also suggested an online digital store of adviser qualifications and continuing professional development points to foster transparency of adviser skill sets and the types of advice they provided.