Appearing on the latest episode of the ifa Show podcast, Australia’s head of customer strategy and propositions, Matt Lippiatt, believes there are “exciting times” ahead.
“There’s a lot of people being keen to talk down this industry or talk down advisers or talk down insurance. I, for one, I’m not one of those people,” he said.
“I just have never bought into it because I look at it and I go, ‘This is a classic market to me that is supply constrained.’ The number of people out there who need to get good financial advice is huge. It’s epic. Our problem is that we can’t supply enough to actually meet that demand.”
Mr Lippiatt conceded that the supply issue has been at least partially driven by regulatory changes imposed on the advice sector that is has not yet “fully adjusted” to, however the industry has not yet embraced technology to the extent of other parts of the economy.
“We, in the collective sense, how do you actually reimagine the way advice is delivered and so forth?” he said.
“But [the opportunity is] massive. It’s huge.
“And so for those out there listening, you’re in the right industry at the right time, I reckon. And we’re really committed as an insurer to partnering with advice businesses to help capture that opportunity.”
On the podcast, Mr Lippiatt also spoke at length about how advisers can use health to grow their business.
Listen to the full episode here.
Mr Lippiatt’s comments come ahead of the federal election in May which the executive director of the Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP), Peter Johnston recently told ifa could be the most important in financial services history.
“Do we stay with what we have experienced over the past eight years or put our faith in a new ALP government? The sporting parlance is look at the score board and if you do not like what you see, look at the other option,” Mr Johnston said.
Financial advice already has been reimagined for delivery by technology. There is no supply constraint. There is a plethora of technology enabled advice available. Most of it is very poor quality and illegal. But regulators don’t seem to care. Regulators are more concerned with persecuting professional, licensed advisers.
There is a supply constraint for professional licensed advice, but that is due to bad regulation, not the delivery mechanism. Fix the bad regulation and consumers will have better access to both interpersonal and technology enabled professional advice.