Accountants will be the big winners of financial planning business, according to high profile industry figure Robert MC Brown.
Accountants will be the big winners of financial planning business, according to high profile industry figure Robert MC Brown.
Addressing the FPA Sydney chapter lunch, Brown said: “There is a new industry emerging and it is the advice industry. The winner will be the adviser who controls the client, that person will be the hub of the wheel. Accountants already coordinate the client’s financial activities, they already have control of the client.”
Brown argues that while the Internet will soon be able to supply simple financial planning advice and products, there will be growing consumer demand for more sophisticated financial planning advice. And those clients, he says, are already accounting clients.
“Accountants at present control or influence the financial decisions of small and medium enterprises both here and across the world. These are the clients with more sophisticated planning needs and this is what places accountants in an excellent position to service those needs.”
Brown said that while accountants and accounting bodies have been slow to act on the opportunities available to them by entering the financial planning arena, they are now waking up.
“The accounting bodies want to position themselves as pre-eminent [in financial planning]. The A in ICAA and in ASCPA will stand for adviser.”
While Brown said he thought accountants might enter the financial planning arena by forming alliances with financial planners or buying a financial planning practice, he says one thing is certain: “Accountants will become the dominant players in the financial planning industry. Just like the republic it’s only a matter of time.”
