The turning point for financial advice in Australia

The digital change is pivotal, but it’s not the only shift going on.

The world has shifted. These are tough times and they will affect people differently. Advisers are going to experience their own hardship through this time, but it’s also a big turning point for them.

Advisers have been under pressure for the last few years where the industry has been belittled and downtrodden under the weight of a Royal Commission. It gave no mercy to the 1000’s of small advice businesses currently helping their clients navigate the tidal wave of change hitting society and the financial world.

Despite the immovable compliance burden, there are some changes that are going to shift the way advice is delivered and consumed forever.

The digital shift happening right now as a result of social distancing will help advisers in a number of ways.

Digital signatures

Digital signatures have been around for years and it still boggles the mind how they are not accepted everywhere…that is now changing. Along with the legal and medical profession, financial services providers who would only accept a wet original signature for a range of different reasons are now rapidly changing their tune. The outcome of this is a reduction in costs for the advice process and faster advice delivery.

Digital whiteboards

A whiteboard is a crucial tool for most advisers… these are being digitised as well. Advisers that are used to drawing complex diagrams are reporting that a digital tablet over screen share is working fine, if not better.

Digital meetings

You’ve got people of all ages downloading Zoom and having catch ups with friends for the first time. These people are prospective advice clients who now engage in video meetings as a matter of normalcy. The concern held that online meetings are less valuable than a face to face meeting is diminishing by the day. This gives a massive opportunity for advisers to remove the cost base of an office without any actual or perceived reduction in quality of service.

Digital fact finding

Everyone has incorporated some form of digital in their business in the last few years…but there has still been the remnants of the paper age. While paper fact finds are still the norm for some businesses, many advisers want nothing more than to drop this clunky method and switch to digital fact finds. One of the biggest concerns is not wanting to break a client engagement formula that works and that the tech will get in the way. For this exact reason, we’ve focused on choice, flexibility and customisation for the adviser at Advice Revolution. This combined with a compliance backbone means that flicking through paper or word documents to check what’s been missed is a thing of the past.

Where is digital advice adoption on this curve?

I think as an industry we’re now well into the late majority and even touching on the laggards.

For some advisers this is catapulting them into the digital age and for others, this is the same way they’ve been operating for years. For the newly digital advisers, the benefit will be that they transform their practice efficiency and reap the productivity and compliance benefits. For the already digital advice propositions, they’ve just had their addressable market boom.

The bottom line is that the capacity for more Australians to access advice is only going to improve as a result of digitisation.

People are looking for leadership

The financial markets downturn, actual or prospective job losses and stimulus changes have created an overwhelming tsunami of financial decisions for many people. Angus Woods and the team at Adviser Ratings have seen a tripling of interest for advisers on their site.

There’s plenty of examples of adviser leadership at the moment. I was talking to an adviser the other day who has had a few clients who have lost their job. He was in a bittersweet world. His clients were having a really tough time in life, but at the same time all the emergency buffers and planning done previously had come to the fore. They were prepared as a result of advice, so even with the unfortunate event of losing their job, they’re still of the view that their adviser is an essential and valuable spend.

It’s been brilliant to see messages of conviction in XY Adviser where advisers are wearing the overwhelming demand from they’re clients as a badge of honour…in the end most advisers are in the game because they have made a choice to take responsibility for other people. For most, the flux that’s going on, just means game on, this is what they’re here for.

All sound good, but you’re not feeling it?

If you’re feeling a bit isolated from the general hum of the office or the city, check out XY Adviser, the social network specifically for financial advice. There’s a whole range of people in the same boat working together to continue looking out for their clients, while staying on the pulse as these immediate changes unfold.

Another challenge being experienced right now is how to connect with new clients in this climate. All the adviser marketing gurus (Steve Salvia, Adele Martin and Paul Giannotti) are saying the same thing, the message of aspiration and future has to shift to solving the problems of here and now. There is also a clear message that strong leadership is what is going to cut through. If you want to hear more you can check out all their great content on the XY Adviser Social Platform for free.

So the digital change is pivotal, but it’s not the only shift going on. The adviser mindset has lept from compliance fatigue to one of resolute client support, squashing the unfounded doubt that had built up over the last few years.

There’s a chance that the government will see the value an adviser plays and the need to reduce red tape, but that’s a dependency I’m not willing to wait on. Tech is the answer for reducing the pain and we’re doing our damnedest at Advice Revolution to make advisers lives easier.

Advisers have had the toughest of times over the last few years and they’re still not out of the woods yet, but this is a time for the leadership that they can bring to the table, to assist people regain control of their financial lives.

By Adrian Patty, Director of Innovation