Speaking exclusively on the ifa Show podcast, Netwealth joint managing director Matt Heine noted that every stage of the advice process is “totally riddled with friction”, saying it’s a paper-based, laborious, complex and tedious process.
According to Mr Heine, the part of the advice process with most ‘friction’, is the upfront onboarding of new clients, where there are continuous requests for paper work from the client after they’ve chosen their adviser and decided to go ahead with the advice relationship.
“They’ve come to see advisers because they’re not necessarily financially literate. Potentially they’re embarrassed,” Mr Heine said.
“There are a whole lot of friction points that make that initial onboarding process really challenging for a client and it’s important that we can really hold their hand throughout that.”
Speaking about the client fact find process, Mr Heine pondered on ways to make the fact find a more enjoyable process, and whether it needs to be through an online survey or through a face-to-face process between the adviser and the client.
Further, he said there are parts of the client fact find that should definitely be automated.
“If we can look at how we use things like Green ID for upfront KYC but also to collect a whole lot of information, such as bank feeds collecting their income and expenses, and having a really good understanding or picture of their wealth before they even come into the adviser’s office, I think there’s a lot of work that can done around that part,” Mr Heine said.
To listen to the full ifa Show podcast with Matt Heine, click here.
Where does Heine get his info from ? He’s all theoretical talk and must be ready for another IT product flog . As a 40 year FP , onboarding is an easy process . Try talking to a big client that has just dropped $150k in a down market . Come up with a Robo for that one ………
And people don’t think for a second that a major disrupter can see this as a major opportunity to come in – just like UBER and bypass/disregard existing laws in place and take advantage and do it differently – oh wait – Industry Super is doing that! Advice masqueraded as General Advice!
Unfortunately a few bad apples have spoiled the profession for the rest of us.
Luckily we have FASEA and the ethics exam. Surely you wouldnt be able to pass the ethics exam if you are not ethical. I wonder if, once we have passed this exam we can do away with all the compliance rubbish and get on to helping our clients?
Yep, the mountains of documentation and continually expanding advice process and compliance is not there to protect the client.
It has been developed and made mandatory by regulation in order to have as many possible opportunities to ping an adviser on any and every conceivable aspect of the process.
More documentation required means more opportunity to get a scalp for a genuine and unintentional omission that would have no negative impact on the client’s outcome.
It is purely about creating a process that is simple to deconstruct at every level and to create an attack and a notch on ASIC’s belt.
They will call it consumer protection measures but what they mean is adviser destruction measures.
We were given no option with BT Panorama to begin with, but when they realised they were losing some potential clients with large accounts who dont use mobile phones & dont use email (to set up their account with), they eventually caved in & allowed us to set new accounts on paper based applications. Some people just dont use computers or smart phones. They’re for the servants to use.
Only going to get worse
Matt overlooked the reason why people come to us is often they are time poor.. The current wait time today to speak to AustralianSuper is 45 minutes as an example. Super funds don’t appreciate the relationship between the adviser and the client and that some people prefer to delegate an aspect of this to a trusted adviser. Couple with this is advisers are now drowning in paperwork. My previous licensee required 3 signatures on three different documents in order to charge an advice fee and then add in the super funds requirements it’s a time consuming process that ultimately restricts financial advice to those he can pay for it.
totally agree, the paperwork is ridiculous.
A skilled adviser can easily make fact find requirements an enjoyable experience for clients. Most people like to talk about themselves so this isn’t an issue at all if done well. The issue is with the reams of compliance garbage that follow i.e. fact find (multiple if SMSF’s or age care advice is required for example), evidence docs, authorities, BID, working papers and strategy worksheets, alternative recommendations, fee calculators, investment research, file notes, application docs, PDS, paraplanning requests and the list goes on. Now, you would think that your health is far more important than your finances however, I was talking to my GP the other day about getting a flu shot. His regulatory requirement when providing medical advice is a one sentence file note covering his recommendation and that he discussed the potential risks with me. That’s it. None of the other bs as detailed above.