Advisers should not be seeking ‘white whale’ tech solution

Advisers need not wait for a ‘holy grail’ technology solution as there are plenty of specialised software solutions out there that can drive efficiency in firms, according to the founder of iFactFind.

Speaking to Money Management, Paul Moran, founder of iFactFind, a cloud-based client data collection tool, said advisers needed to be focused on where efficiency could be achieved.

“They’re waiting for the white whale, they’re waiting for Moby Dick – the one thing that does everything,” said Moran.

Moran, who was also the founder of Moran Partners Financial Planning, said his live client document software solution would not replace a firm’s tech stack but would instead address a simple problem, which was that many advisers were still using paper.

Advisers would still be needed to provide quality advice that could not be achieved solely through technology, according to Moran. This was despite the 2022 Quality of Financial Advice Review draft terms of reference mentioning it would pay particular attention to how technology might enable mass market adoption of low-cost advice.

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He said the nature of technology was about simplifying things down to small components, which missed the point of financial planning because, by nature, giving advice was a holistic process.

“If I wanted just to make a simple recommendation, then the tendency is to gather the information I need to make that recommendation and nothing else,” Moran said.

“While on the other hand, if I wanted to give more holistic advice to people, I’d need to gather a lot more information.

“So we think that the quality and the quantity of the information collected about the client will be a key differentiating factor in the difference between technology-driven advice and adviser-driven advice.”