The very mistrustful and the very confident are the sort of clients who have ditched their adviser to use direct-to-consumer platforms, Carlton Hood, customer director of Old Mutual Wealth, has said.
During a panel debate at the Tisa annual conference, Mr Hood (pictured) said: “I always get D2C questions. We have been very-adviser focused, but are looking as well at developments in the digital space.
“It is becoming a popular channel, and it is the confident investor and mistrustful investor who are moving away from financial advice and going there.”
However, he said that, generally, digital services on their own were not going to solve the problem of getting more advice to people.
Mr Hood added: “We have got to engage a lot better with customers than we have done in the past. We have got to do more than just putting on online services. We have got to make it easy and give people peace of mind. There is lots of earnest stuff on the web, but not engaging stuff.”
Industry view
Professor Peter Tufano, Peter Moores Dean at Saïd Business School, Oxford, said: “Some of the fundamental drivers of human behaviours are not driven by technology. However, young people do not wear wrist watches any more. They carry mobile phones. People will willingly share their financial information on websites in a way that our generation just would not.”
