More wealth (excluding land) will pass to the next generation in the next 20 years or so than in the previous 2,000 years; an enormous transfer of wealth that highlights the critical need to increase the number of advisers.
I was heartened to see in the Budget the initiative to help small businesses bring apprentices on board; something with which the New Model Business Academy and Personal Finance Society are already breaking new ground.
However, not only do we need to swell the numbers of advisers, but also urgently attend to the way we engage with the wider families of our existing clients to ensure that the value of our service is clear.
It is extremely worrying when dealing with this cascade of wealth that around 60 per cent of families who inherit wealth do not retain the adviser – who probably helped create much of the wealth.
With this in mind, I await with great interest the findings of the Personal Investment Management & Financial Advice Association’s millennial working group.
The key here is to begin your relationship with millennials alongside their parents, who are already your clients.The importance of the engagement of millennials with financial advice cannot be overstated, as this demographic is now the UK’s largest working group. Pimfa’s study aims to examine the shape of this market, its attitude to financial planning and how millennials will interact with advice.
Although this generation is more technology savvy than any that has gone before it, we are yet to see an uptake in the use of robo-advice solutions, which suggests that, predictably, personal financial advice has not been usurped by impersonal algorithms.
Face-to-face advice will always remain the gold standard; however, the question remains of how to get in front of these young people to show them the value of advice.
The key here is to begin your relationship with millennials alongside their parents, who are already your clients.
The importance of helping your clients ensure their wills are up to date is critical, and invariably means your involvement with the next generation. A word-of-mouth recommendation is better than any amount of advertising, and I cannot imagine a more reliable introduction than one from a family member.
By engaging with the next generation at this early stage, you can show them directly how much value is to be gained through personal financial advice, and ensure that the passing of your current client leads to the start of a new chapter with their family.
Ken Davy is group chairman of SimplyBiz
