Advisers slow to the mobile party

With internet speeds increasing and the adoption of mobile technology expanding, financial advisers face a big challenge when it comes to staying relevant in social media.

The Humble Investor's Colin Williams said many advisers looking to update their online profiles through web page redesigns fail to consider page functionality on a mobile device such as a smart phone or tablet.

"Mobile is creating a lot of issues and opportunities and websites need to be what they call a ‘responsive' website that allows users to navigate easily from the landing page," Williams said.

Companies with much larger websites like institutions and banks will often automatically direct users to a specific mobile website if they're accessing the home page from a mobile device.

In addition, more and more larger financial service providers are encouraging people to use their mobile app, Williams said.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' latest internet activity report, the volume of data downloaded via mobile phones for the three months ended 30 June was 19,636 terabytes, a huge 43 per cent increase from the three months ended December 31, 2012.

As at 30 June, there were 19.6 million subscribers with internet access via a mobile handset in Australia, an increase of 13 per cent from 17.4 million subscribers at December last year.

The rollout of the National Broadband Network will only escalate mobile and tablet use and this should give pause to all small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) about how they operate in the future, Bibby Financial Services managing director, Australia and New Zealand, Mark Cleaver said.

This includes providing extended business hours through online trading and attracting and training skilled staff who may live regionally through teleworking, he said.