Research conducted by Griffith Business School in Queensland after speaking with advisers at the peak of the pandemic between April and June last year found that long-term advised clients were “better off, felt more informed, panicked less and maintained good, long-term financial habits”.
Griffith Business School’s Dr Kirsten MacDonald said the report highlights how important advisers can be in crisis intervention.
“These professionals are frontline workers and not just during public crises like the pandemic. Clients generally needed more emotional support during a personal crisis,” Dr MacDonald said.
“From a marriage breaking up to a death in the family, financial advisers are there when a client’s world falls apart. You can’t discuss money until you deal with the emotions and talk through the hard stuff.”
Dr MacDonald added that advisers were able to assist clients by relieving their mental load and ability to make decisions during challenging times.
The research found that advised clients were in a better financial and behavioural position to deal with stress and the unprecedented events such as lockdowns, while also highlighting a “lack of preparedness” by those who attempted to self-manage their financial affairs.
“This reinforces the need to continue to pursue the agenda set out by the government and the sector of rebuilding consumer trust and confidence in the financial advice profession, as this may lead to more consumers accessing advice in a more timely manner,” the report reads.
“Despite the substantial personal and economic costs of the COVID-19 crisis, the silver lining for the financial advice profession (and their clients) is the apparent increase in recognition of non-advised consumers of the need to seek support and the advances made in terms of business practices regarding uptake of technology to provide access and efficiency.”
Funny that we are the only industry where our service is defined where ASIC has defined a Financial Service as switching $10,000 out of RIO and buying BHP (with the necessary advice document) and if you don’t…. you’ll need to hand back all your client fees yet clearly the research from these tax payer funded researchers shows the value of advice is so much more…..Is this not conclusive evidence backed research that ASIC HAVE LOST THE PLOT and are out of touch with reality? Yet ASIC is set in driving out financial advice in Australia and ruining the lives of small business owners.
problem is the people who need the most help are frozen out because of the cost to provide advice.
Yep, and if tax payers Research (Griffith Uni) is saying one thing, and ASIC are out there doing another thing than that tax payer funded regulator (ASIC) has failed.
So it’s seems clear that this Academic peer reviewed research means that Australians are better off having an ongoing relationship rather than some [i]” Hesta/ Aware Super transactional once off, Online Calculator style never hear from them again until I pay another $3000″ [/i]…Hence is this not the evidence required that ASIC need to review the entire client consent and Opt in process to make it easier for Financial Planners and reverse the onerous requirements in favor of actual Advisers.
Considering we also had the distraction of FASEA it was a hell of a period and I feel the most challenging during my 25 years advising clients. Even more so than the GFC..as we had the added impact of not knowing what our own futures may look like plus COVID restrictions, fear of the virus etc etc.
The big question is ..will mature advisers like myself be in the industry and be there for our clients next time the need is so great ..if that is before the end of 2025..yes..otherwise…..!!!!
“Invaluable” and “the need to continue to persue the agenda set out by the government”..are rather ironic statements in the face of the systematic decimation of this “profession”
and doctors, lawyers, accountants and politicians are squeaky clean? There are cowboys in every profession.