Australia’s advice challenge is not just about whether enough people can access financial advice. We know too many Australians are currently priced out or underserved by the industry as it stands. But there is another dimension to the problem: for those already receiving advice, is it connected and responsive enough for the financial lives they are now living?
That question is becoming more urgent as both advisers and their clients adapt to some of the most significant structural shifts the industry has seen in a generation.
Adviser numbers have roughly halved since 2018 at precisely the same time the number of Australians with complex financial advice needs has grown. That trend is only gathering pace from here, with wealth transfer, retirement complexity, tax reform and larger household balance sheets expected to pull more Australians into advice conversations that cannot be solved through investment advice alone.
The latest figures suggest as many as 10 million Australians are currently thinking about their need for advice – ranging from the simple to the complex – with around 3.5 million Australians seeking advice for complex or very complex advice needs.
At the same time there are sensitive financial challenges emerging for high-net-worth and mass-affluent clients. Many are managing larger superannuation balances alongside business interests, making decisions about property and intergenerational wealth while tackling tax complexity and family obligations. Rarely does all this sit neatly inside one professional discipline.
This means fewer people are coming to advisers with advice needs the industry has traditionally solved for – a portfolio recommendation or a retirement income projection, for instance. Increasingly, they want someone who can help them understand how the pieces fit together. These conversations increasingly span wealth, tax, debt, estate planning, succession, philanthropy, family governance and lifestyle goals.
Recent budget proposals and tax reform debates have only sharpened this point, forcing many clients to reassess long-standing structures, including family trusts, companies and testamentary trusts.
So as advice needs change and become more interconnected, the industry response is beginning to take shape. Clients don’t want to repeat their story multiple times across different meetings, complete separate fact-finds or coordinate between several advisers to solve related problems. Increasingly, they are seeking a more integrated experience where their circumstances are understood once and applied across the full spectrum of advice a client requires.
Clients themselves don’t see wealth, tax, estate planning, lending and family matters as separate issues to be addressed by different professionals in isolation. They want advice that reflects the way they actually experience their financial lives. Bringing those conversations together in a human-centric but tech-enabled manner is how advice becomes more useful, more relevant and responsive to the decisions clients are trying to make.
Technology should remove friction, not the adviser
In the industry’s push to achieve better client outcomes with more integrated advice models, technology is a big consideration. AI is already changing advice on both sides of the relationship. Clients are using it to gather information, test ideas and ask questions before they ever sit down with an adviser. Firms are using it to improve onboarding, summarise meetings, strengthen record keeping and identify compliance gaps earlier.
The opportunity is not to replace the adviser, but to remove friction from the advice process. When technology can reduce duplicated fact-finding, speed up document preparation and help teams share information more effectively, advisers have more time for the work clients value most: strategy, judgement and guidance through decisions that are rarely purely financial.
That is where the human element becomes more important, not less. A tool can process information. A good adviser can interpret it in the context of a client’s family, goals, obligations, concerns and competing priorities. The firms that adapt best will be those that use technology to make advice more connected, while keeping the client relationship at the centre.
The next benchmark is connected advice
The next phase of advice will require firms to think differently about how they are built. Holistic advice cannot simply mean offering more services under a single brand. It has to mean those services are genuinely connected, with teams sharing information, working from a common understanding of the client and coordinating advice around the decisions that matter most.
And it won’t be easy. At Focus Partners, bringing financial planning, tax, lending and estate advice under one roof has exposed just how much the structural barriers are firm-side, not client-side. Licensing arrangements, team structures and information-sharing habits built around disciplines don’t dissolve overnight. Bridging that gap requires deliberate design, not good intentions.
That is where leading firms will separate themselves. Clients will not judge an integrated advice model by how it is described, but by how it feels. Did they have to repeat the same information three times? Did their adviser understand the tax, debt, estate and investment consequences of a decision? Did the advice arrive quickly enough to be useful? Did the strategy reflect their family, business and long-term goals?
As technology improves, those expectations will only rise. Clients will expect advice to be faster, clearer and more coordinated, but they will still want judgement when the decision is complex or personal.
For the advice profession, that is the real opportunity. Technology and human relationships are not in competition. Used well, technology is what allows advice to become more responsive and more integrated. The firms that get there first won’t just win clients. They’ll define what the advice profession looks like next.
Kristen Bell is president at Focus Partners Australia
