Q: What are the pros and cons of risk profiling tools?

Some stop at the risk profiling stage while others have a line of sight from analysis through to a final product recommendation.

The degree of integration into back office systems will be a consideration for some advisers, keeping client data in a single repository.

Product provider tools are available on adviser extranets, typically supporting fund selection from within a set range.

Whatever and wherever the tool is located, the adviser has a duty to understand the functionality and assumptions used within the software solution. Some tools and providers are more transparent than others.

Speaking in 2011, Paul Resnik, co-founder of FinaMetrica, said most UK advisers use some form of risk questionnaire, which may be one provided in their planning software, by a product supplier or as a required element from a compliance department.

Typically, he said the client completed it quickly, often with the adviser’s assistance.

Then, he said one of two things occurred - either the adviser moves on to the real portfolio design process or the risk questionnaire itself is used to select an investment portfolio directly.

Mr Resnik said this last type of profiling was known as a portfolio picker strategy.

Questions are asked about goals, experience, risk capacity, risk tolerance, etc, to select one of five or six investor styles, for example “A Prudent investor who values security of capital …”.

Each investor style has its own model portfolio/asset allocation.

According to Mr Resnik this reduces the whole planning process to an intellectually empty and ethically indefensible quiz.

Normally, he said the designer of a portfolio picker starts with the model portfolios/asset allocations and works backwards to a questionnaire and scoring algorithm – a very arbitrary process.

Mr Resnik said: “A recent empirical study of 131 such questionnaires showed alarming results.

“When all questions in the questionnaires were answered in the most conservative way, the percentage of assets recommended for stocks ranged from 0 to 70.

“When answered in the most risky way, the percentage of assets recommended for stocks ranged from 50 to 100.”

Mr Resnik said one consequence of the industry’s reliance on portfolio pickers is that many advisers have a poor understanding of their clients’ risk tolerance.

Statistical studies typically show correlations of .4 or less between advisers’ estimates and measured risk tolerances.

According to Mr Resnik correlations of this order give errors of two or more standard deviations for one in six cases.

This means that advisers would be more accurate if they made no attempt to assess clients’ risk tolerance and simply assumed all clients were average, Mr Resnik said.