Nick Eatock

intelliflo, the global cloud-based technology solution for financial advisers, has today released Advice, evolved: A new era in Australian financial advice, a whitepaper detailing the major themes that will characterise the next five years of advice.  

With only one-in-10 Australians currently advised, and most people unwilling to pay the cost for full financial advice, there is a critical issue facing Australia: how to get more people the advice they need, when they need it, at a price point they can afford. 

The whitepaper is the product of a dynamic roundtable in Sydney late last year, featuring seven esteemed participants representing technological innovation, policy, advice and consulting: intelliflo CEO Nick Eatock, Adviser Ratings founder Angus Woods, financial services policy expert Keddie Waller, Product Rex founder Nick Topham, Finura Group managing director Peter Worn, ensombl CEO Clayton Daniels, and The Financial Adviser Scale Squad founder Adele Martin.

The aim of the roundtable was to move beyond the much discussed topics of compliance burdens and low adviser numbers, and instead visualise how the financial advice sector will need to articulate its value and purpose to a growing pool of potential clients as an intergenerational transfer of wealth gathers pace.

Nick Eatock, CEO and co-founder of intelliflo, said the whitepaper examines how the advice profession will move to become more customer-centric in the coming years, thanks to new technology, changing demands, and demographic shifts.

“Australia’s advice profession is at a crossroads. On one hand, technology is reshaping the delivery of advice, streamlining processes, and enabling a more scalable approach. On the other, the human connection –the very essence of our value proposition – remains irreplaceable,” he said.

“With that in mind, the future involves technology complimenting human advice delivery, so that advisers can reach more customers, while saving on time and costs. Clients, meanwhile, will receive a richer experience, with technological tools to keep them engaged over the longer term.

“Over the next five years, we expect the advice profession to reach many more Australians, as advisers embrace new technology, and customers navigate intergenerational wealth transfer.”

The whitepaper identified seven key themes for advisers and financial advice practices to consider:

• Changing the perception of advice: Working collectively as a profession to create universal understanding about how advice can add value and finding ways to continually improve the client experience.
• Adopting consumer-friendly payment models: Meeting evolving consumer expectations by embracing new methods of payment, including trials and a PayPal-style model.  
• Technology as the foundation: Incorporating technology to slash costs, give clients flexibility and future-proof advice businesses.  
• The next frontier: An adviser-led system: Creating an adviser and client-first model, which proactively advocates for clients’ best interests through self-regulation and product design.  
• Reaching more Australians through scale: Using super funds and M&A activity to ensure millions more have access to advice.  
• Building a whole-of-life pathway: Reaching consumers at critical life stages to ensure they are prepared for the future with quality advice. 
• Engaging young people: Preparing for the biggest intergenerational wealth transfer in history by ensuring young people can engage with advice in a way they choose to.  

For advisers, each chapter of the whitepaper features a series of action items to meet the emerging needs of the next generation, including using AI to further personalise the client experience, building professional profiles in innovative ways, creating free financial education content to drive prospects, and employing technology to engage clients with portals and customised alerts.

Read the whitepaper.

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Sarah Brennan

Leading industry market research firm, Investment Trends, and independent global technology consultancy, Finura Group, are working together to deliver deep quantitative research and an enhanced experience for clients who want deep insights into the area of financial services technology.

Investment Trends is a financial services industry research company, specialising in delivering actionable insights and decision support to the world’s leading organisations. Finura Group is an independent global technology consultancy and is launching a Finura Insights division to support this partnership. Finura Group works with progressive financial services businesses to provide best practice digital advice frameworks and technology transformation systems.

The new alliance brings together a wealth of research experience and deep technology expertise, through a shared belief that financial services technology will continue to change rapidly for the benefit of financial intermediaries, and the end consumers. We have therefore chosen three areas of research to combine our capabilities and assist firms in adapting to this changing environment:

• Examining adviser’s evolving technology needs, key platform and planning software industry trends, drivers/barriers of selection and satisfaction with platforms. Recent Investment Trends research shows this is an area of increasing importance as evidenced by the 2021 Adviser Technology Needs Report showing that COVID has accelerated the use of digital tools in all areas and the uptake of digital engagement methods look set to stay, particularly online meetings, digital signatures, and email campaigns.
• Providing an in-depth review of recent developments in the Australian advice technology space, including a benchmark of functionality offered by established advice software providers. Advisers are seeking information around where they sit compared to their peers and areas for improvement. To support this, our 2020 Advice Technology study showed numerous acquisitions and new startups entering the space prompting the industry’s leading providers to rebrand and reposition through increased advertising and funding for adviser support activities.
• The latest developments in digital technology used to deliver wealth services to Australian retail consumers. We saw these developments through the results of our 2022 Digital Wealth research showing that with open banking enabling a fifth generation of digital wealth fintech start-ups, alongside the ongoing digital transformation of financial services, product providers, super funds and wealth managers are looking for better ways to engage with their users.

“This marks an important milestone for our business. We believe it’s a compelling combination of deep quantitative analysis and digital strategy which can drive the transformation of wealth management through technology,” says Peter Worn, Joint Managing Director of Finura Group.

“Investment Trends approach has always been to evolve our research to meet the changing needs of our clients and to keep ahead of the rapid evolution in the wealth technology space. Working with Finura Insights means that for both Investment Trends and Finura clients, we will deliver the best fusion of research and innovation in the technology space.” says Sarah Brennan, CEO at Investment Trends.

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