Gatekeeper planners have missed next growth sector
Financial planners who act as the gatekeepers of knowledge for their clients are ‘having a conversation about their working out period and when they will retire' having missed the next growth area of financial advice.
Decimal executive director strategy and innovation Jan Kolbusz said financial planning advice for the 80 per cent of Australians who do not receive any form of advice had moved past seeing a financial planner as ‘the keeper of knowledge'.
"The future market of clients for advisers will not stand for this type of attitude and want to be part of the process, but they don't feel that they need to have face to face interactions with their adviser in many circumstances," Kolbusz said.
"The contestable market for pure trust advice is not where the growth is at present. The market that is not getting advice is those who want it online and with instant responses, either face to face or remotely."
"The next growth market will not be retirees whom the planner has to get to know personally. Rather planners in the future will be servicing hundreds of clients with full compliance but not all of them will be face to face."
He said this shift would be driven by technology developments which would bring complicated matters into the hands of clients but still have financial planners providing the facilities to enact the advice and ensure it meets their needs.
In an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange this morning Decimal said it had signed its first dealer group level agreement with WealthSure to provide its 180 advisers with planning and client management software and would next week go live with the first online planning software that advisers could access and set-up in one hour and roll-out to clients on a case by case basis.
"We will be using big system technologies that are already in use by the banks and applying them for the first time in the financial planning industry," Kolbusz said.
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