According to Iress’ Advice 2030: The Big Shift report, surveyed advisers predict their customer base will increase by 27 per cent on average over the next five years, expanding by almost half a million clients.
In order to meet this demand, however, the profession will have to see an increase in the number of advisers. However, the report predicts only a 1.1 per cent increase in the number of advisers per annum, reaching an estimated 16,708 by 2029.
Given the minimal growth expected for the adviser pool, the profession will then need to see a significant increase in efficiency in order to meet the growth demand for advice, as agreed by 76 per cent of advisers according to the report.
In order to address the issues raised in the report, the firm said advisers will be able to access the Advisely Index, a five-minute benchmarking tool providing advisers, paraplanners, and support staff with a personalised report showing how they compare to their peers across a number of key advice delivery metrics.
Iress said it would also allow businesses to identify and understand where efficiency may be lacking throughout their processes.
In addition to this, they will also be granted access to a seven-part Advisely Growth Masterclass, showing financial advice business Twomeys’ business-wide transformation on its journey to scale up and bring on more clients.
Finally, a “Finding Time” guide will be made available, which, like both the index and the masterclass, is designed to help advice businesses to improve efficiency, freeing up time to increase their client capacity.
Iress’ executive general manager – wealth APAC, Kelli Willmer, said these tools will assist advisers in bridging the advice gap, allowing more Australians to access a financial adviser.
“Our Advice 2030: The Big Shift report uncovered the potential for the industry to grow substantially over the next five years. But it also highlighted the capacity conundrum facing today’s advisers – 486,000 new clients would mean almost 30 new clients per adviser,” Willmer said.
“Clearly, advisers must find ways to free up valuable capacity to take on more clients. Through Iress’ Advisely Index, we know that top-performing advisers save almost one day per week through efficiency in advice delivery alone.
“That’s why we’ve created a resource pool of tools to further support Advisely members and the wider advice community to understand how they can capitalise on the advice opportunity ahead of us.”
