Banks cost cutting will be the key drivers of e-commerce into the future, according to InvestorWeb director of online and media services, Mark Maley.
Banks cost cutting will be the key drivers of e-commerce into the future, according to InvestorWeb director of online and media services, Mark Maley.
Maley says banks have clear business incentive to push, pull, drag and drive their customers online and cut expenses at a branch level.
“They will be working hard to make online transactions cheaper, more efficient and more user friendly, and in the process they will be training their customers to become comfortable and proficient on the web,” Maley says.
“It will reduce their costs and provide new cost-effective marketing channels they never imagined before.”
Maley also says the role of the finance professional will change due to cheap web services that remove the adviser from the process.
Maly reckons that as consumers get greater choice, they will refuse to pay an upfront fee, which removes the means and incentive to have face-to-face contact with a planner.
“This is particularly dangerous for planners in an environment where the government is sponsoring legislation that encourages choice in superannuation and simplified prospectuses designed for the Internet,” he says.
To prepare for the coming changes, advisers must focus on higher-value work and move further up the value chain to work that cannot be down-loaded from the net.
“The fundamentals have not changed and objective advice will always have a value but the level of quality will have to increase to combat the competition,” he says.
“Advisers must harness the web to lower costs, to increase productivity and improve service and become an aggregator that pulls all these crucial services together for the customer.”
Maley says the good news for planners is that by harnessing the efficiencies of the Web, they can prosper in areas such as managed funds, insurance and banking and property products where the revolution is only just beginning.
It will also lead to an increase in levels of professionalism as the industry is purged from the bottom.
“Sites are delivering an education for individuals in investing that will put ordinary investors on an equal footing with all but the most efficient planners and advisers. I believe it marks the end of the under-trained, non-independent psuedo-adviser,” he says.
