Financial advisers are planning to increase their technology spend to more than $200,000, according to Investment Trends.
The firm’s latest Adviser Technology Needs report found firms were planning to spend an extra $70,000 on technology, often because of the need for multiple solutions such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems and modelling tools.
This would see the annual cost increase from an average of $146,000 to $216,000.
“It’s assuring to see advisers’ rising adoption in technology solutions and intentions to increase annual spend on these solutions going forward, making the advice preparation and implementation process more streamlined and effective.”, said Dougal Guild, research director at Investment Trends.
“Affordable advice is a key concern across the industry, with advisers looking to technology solutions to support their ongoing compliance and client engagement. Greater integration can make a material difference and has also been proven to boost confidence levels.”,
However, the use of multiple tools meant advisers needed better integration of the different systems to prevent problems and delays occurring.
Two-thirds of advisers said they would use an end-to-end solution to minimise the delays and errors currently occurring between advice delivery and implementation.
“It’s encouraging to see advisers’ rising adoption of technology solutions, however with this comes an increasing need for greater integration and standardised industry solutions to increase practice efficiency while minimising the time spent on compliance.”, added Guild.
