Advisers more likely to recommend growth than income products as client priorities have changed, according to the NS&I Financial Advice Barometer.
The proportion of advisers choosing growth increased by nine percentage points to 37 per cent while the proportion choosing income fell by 10 percentage points to 4 per cent.
But security was the top priority, with 55 per cent saying this was important.
Almost all advisers - 99 per cent - either included cash in their holistic financial planning process or provided the guidance for clients to invest in cash deposits themselves.
No advisers said they did not discuss cash with their clients.
Andrew Pike, head of intermediary relations at NS&I, said: "Cash now appears to be close to an automatic talking point when it comes to discussions between advisers and their clients, and indeed part of the holistic financial planning process in many cases.
"Our latest research shows that not a single adviser said that they did not discuss cash deposits with their clients, while there seems to be a change in priorities in recommending growth products over income all the while making sure clients’ money remains safe."
The popularity of fixed term products has been slowly declining since October 2016, according to NS&I’s survey, but shorter fixed-term options have become more of a priority.
The latest data showed two-year fixed term products had slightly increased in popularity from 26 per cent to 30 per cent at the cost of five-year options, which fell from 3 per cent to 0 per cent.
NS&I's Financial Advice Barometer is conducted by sending emails to around 4,000 financial advisers each quarter who are either registered on the Unbiased mailing list or on the NS&I database.
For the April 2018 survey, 927 people opened the email and 75 people responded to the survey, giving an 8 per cent response rate.
Stefan Fura, director of Furnley House Wealth Management, said he was surprised by the fall in demand for income and the rising demand for growth because of the recent pension reforms.
He said: "I cannot imagine there is a lack of demand for income based on the number of people going into drawdown. The question is whether there has been enough innovation from product providers."
damian.fantato@ft.com
