Let’s be clear, the answer to the ‘advice gap’ is not execution-only. So when next you hear that yet another life company is building a ‘direct-to-consumer’ proposition’, it should fill you with dread.
By asking consumers to make decisions they are ill-equipped to make, these services add to the problem, not the solution. It is another mis-selling scandal in the making.
What we need is real innovation in using technology to deliver real advice to Joe and Gill Average. And readiness to take responsibility for advice or recommendations, not hiding behind the cloak of execution-only.
The technology already exists to enable account aggregation, goal-based cashflow planning and tailored portfolios. Add to this one or two hours of conversation with a financial planner over the phone or Skype, and you come up with a model that is far better than anything in the pre-RDR days.
Take a look at LearnVest in the US. Using technology, it delivers financial planning, including (limited) access to a chartered financial planner and tailored investment portfolios, all at less than $50 (£33) a month.
It is this sort of proposition we need to develop to deliver financial planning to middle Britain at the cost of a gym membership.
Abraham Okusanya is principal at FinalytiQ
