Today’s HECS case, tomorrow’s client base

The youth of today are just too lazy and apathetic to think about going to a financial planner, right?

Not so, according to Christine Barker, who at 27, says her peers represent an emerging and very distinct potential client base with a whole raft of new financial problems for the financial planners of the future to tap.

And as an undergraduate financial planning student, Barker is looking forward to helping out today’s young people when they need her in the years to come.

“I guess people our age are going through some pretty tough times financially, like they might have to manage $20,000 in HECS debt and are wondering if they’ll ever be able to get enough money together to purchase a property.

“Thanks to things like the super guarantee and all the media hype about the ageing population, I think people are now a lot more aware that they do need to plan for their own retirement and I think people our age will feel more aware about going to see a financial planner.”

Barker doesn’t have an extensive financial background.

After finishing year 12 she started an engineering degree, but two years into the course, Barker realised measuring brittle crack propagation wasn’t for her. So she decided to work in a call centre for a while before dropping everything and heading overseas.

Budgeting for the trip provided Barker with her first personal financial planning experience — and she liked it.

“I kind of did [financial planning] trying to figure out how to plan for my trip away and then I thought yeah, I could do this full time, I could do this as a career.”

Now in her final year of a bachelor of business — financial planning at RMIT University in Melbourne, Barker works as an adviser’s assistant in a job placement program through her degree.

On the Financial Services Reform Act, Barker thinks it was necessary “to calm people’s fears and to increase the public’s trust in financial planners”.

When she tells people she is studying financial planning, “they immediately think I must be loaded. They think I don’t want to go out or go shopping for clothes — which is pretty funny, I haven’t even finished my degree yet.”

But when Barker fulfils her intention to become a CFP-qualified financial planner and the money starts to roll in, she doesn’t seem to be too worried about what form her pay packet will take — whether it be commission, bonus, or fee for service.

Just as long as she’s earned it.

“At the end of the day, the main issue is to make sure what you’re receiving or what you’re being paid, whether it be in soft dollar or in cash or whatever, you’re actually earning it by doing the best you can for your client.

“But what I get most out of financial planning now is just educating clients to have a better lifestyle. I find that really rewarding.”

Asked whether she’d be interested in servicing a high-net-worth client base Barker laughs and says, “I think everyone’s after a high-net-worth client base”.

But she still looks forward to providing financial planning support for her generation, regardless of who may or may not fit into that lucrative category.

“I think no matter what position you’re in financially, if you’ve got careful strategies you can put a rewarding program in place.

“And the earlier you can do it, the better.”