How to get advice to middle Australia
The re-emergence of digital advice coupled with hybrid models will help deliver advice to middle Australia, a cohort who does not require a face-to-face advice but often remains excluded due to high costs, according to Link Advice.
Duncan McPherson, General Manager, Link Advice, said that one of the key things for his business is the re-emergence of digital advice and the importance of the advice support.
“The financial planning model needs to be able to provide more advice to more people. The key thing for us is how do we get advice to middle Australia to those everyday Australians who do not have complex advice needs or complex situations,” he said.
“We think that digital has a role to play because those people often do not have probably the situation that demands face to face advice.
“We are investing our time around telephone advice, so telephone and digital, the hybrid advice which would allow us to provide the service to that everyday Australian cohort who probably do not need to have face to face to advice for a number of different reasons.”
Asked about the advice opportunity and market consolidation, McPherson said that one of such sectors were superannuation funds.
“We have certainly seen the merger of superannuation funds, which we provide the advice to the members and we see that obviously that trend is continuing and we see it directly having a beneficial impact on their model and the advice opportunity,” he said.
“A lot of the clients sit in corporate and industry superannuation funds. So, we will see a lot of movement in that in the first six months of 2022 and the relationship between those funds and advisers is becoming really healthy,” he said.
According to McPherson, finding new clients along with operational efficiency and cost reductions were one of the key challenges for advisers.
AUTHOR
Oksana Patron
Recommended for you
ASIC has released the results of its first adviser exam to be held in 2025, with 241 candidates attempting the test.
Quarterly Wealth Data analysis has uncovered positive improvements in financial adviser numbers compared with losses in the prior corresponding period.
Holding portfolios that are too complex or personalised can be a detractor for acquirers of financial advice firms as they require too much effort to maintain post-acquisition.
As the financial advice profession continues to wait on further DBFO legislation, industry commentators have encouraged advisers to act now in driving practice efficiency.
