Financial planners should not be concerned about disruption in the advice sector but rather seek to use it in their discussions with clients according to Kearney Group Financial Services, Chief Executive, Paul Kearney.
Kearney, whose practice was named the 2015 Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) Practice of the Year, said great disruption is what clients expect from their advisers.
“Good advice should have an impact at any stage of life and the idea that technology will be the disruptor of advice is not the case, rather it should enable advisers to disrupt client expectations,” Kearney said.
“Advice is education and if advisers can keep clients in the loop using technology they can show them what they can do for themselves and what a professional can do for them.”
According to Kearney technology will be an empowerment mechanism and advisers should make use of it instead of believing advice was immune from technological change.
“To pretend some of the work of financial planning will not be commoditised is to be kidding yourself. The way people engage with advice in five years will be very different and a paper Statement of Advice review will be a bit like the steam engine,” Kearney said.
He also stated that advisers should not be concerned about education changes which would ultimately benefit all advisers.
“The sooner the whole profession has the same minimum standard the better it will be for all and will remove the question mark over the profession. We made the decision to have degree qualifications for our advisers in 2009 and found it removed the question mark clients had about our practice,” Kearney said.
“These changes have also mean a greater raft of people are interested in advice as a profession and currently it is still in its infancy. We are able to mould it and decide how it looks over the next 20 years.”
This is the only logical approach. I was in practice as a Surveyor in the 70s when the computing and electronic distance measuring technology came in with a rush. It did not put us out of work. It made so many things possible and affordable for clients and expanded the services beyond imagining. Years later a manager of a large firm told me.. “The young guys now can do almost anything. But it is still hard to find and train people who know WHY they are doing it. “. That’s the professional part. It is where you fully understand the needs of the client and you “bring to bear for the client’s benefit, knowledge and judgement beyond that which they would know to ask for”. Hence a large part of a professional surveyor’s education now is not about how to measure and map things , but about a wide technical knowledge of the language and practices of those to be served, such as engineering, geology, forestry, land development, town planning, remote sensing and so on. It is about being able to deeply co-operate with the clients and be good at the WHY. What WHY subjects do readers think should be considered in a real Financial Planner’s education ?
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