Spoiler alert: the story ends with us all going digital.
We are currently in the middle of a gripping drama about how the world changes. A pandemic comes, and as well as brilliantly advancing science, it also accelerates the pace of technological change.
Some of us were ready for this; some of us were not. If you need to flick to see what happens in the final pages, then you really are not paying attention.
And if you are an advice business who thinks that none of this affects you then, well, you probably will not be here in a few years’ time.
Why is Financial Adviser going digital only? Because it is moving with the times. My own paper (and the Financial Times, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal) have all embraced this digital strategy too.
If you are an advice business who thinks that none of this affects you then, well, you probably will not be here in a few years’ timeInternet shopping is booming, food delivery apps are en vogue, many staff have been told to work from home for at least part of the week permanently.
And advice has to move with these trends too.
If you look at the latest Financial Conduct Authority figures on the state of the advice market there are many reasons to be cheerful: adviser numbers are up and the number of adults seeking financial advice is up too.
While this has happened, assets under management of the automated advisers has been climbing massively, and awareness of generic advice services has grown. There is your digital growth, right there.
These are reasons to be celebrate too, even if on the face of it they look like a threat to the traditional advice model. It is not – it is an opportunity.
Advisers need to think pragmatically about shifting the way they service the needs of clients. People want flexibility, transparency and a product that they can use from their mobile phone.
Zoom meetings are just the start. Online portfolio information, basic help and support, as well as guidance and information should all be part of an all-guns-blazing digital service.
This is not giving away business for free; it is adding to it.
Advisers are traditionally very poor at innovation, and the FCA report suggests why: concerns about regulation and the point at which general information and guidance becomes advice.
This will come as no surprise to personal finance journalists, as we get a heap of grief from advisers all the time when we write about general principles of investing, risk and retirement strategies.
They think it is straying into their territory, when actually it is adding to it.
Advisers spend far too much time picking fights over the threshold of generic advice and guidance as well as arguing against robo-advisers, and not enough time thinking about how they can embrace this appetite and use it as an opportunity to prove their own worth.
This is where tech companies always have the upper hand (we have seen it in banking, particularly).
Start-ups ask what they can do within the rules, while older businesses are held back by waiting for the FCA to tell them what they are allowed to do. That moment never comes.
What the robo-advisers and rise of generic advice services tell you is that people are moving with the times.
Not everyone wants face-to-face advice where you are locked in to meetings at a set time and place; some people may be perfectly happy to have advice done remotely at their own convenience.
That is the beauty of the internet – it offers flexibility. And financial advisers have to be able to offer that too; bringing their services to people when they want it and need it.
And, as I have said many times before, quality always wins – it means offering what people want, when they need it.
With the rise of tech comes the rise of data, allowing you to make better decisions based on real information.
The future is digital. We either embrace it or we wither.
Bitcoin ‘millionaires’
As Bitcoin rises again, and more people talk about it becoming mainstream, I have one question: where are the millionaires?
Where are these supposed people that have made fortunes from it? Not those that run trading websites, but the actual investors.
They do not seem to exist, and I think we all know why.
Credit where credit’s due
I have been writing for Financial Adviser in one form or another for nigh on 15 years now.
What have I learned about financial advisers in that time?
They are a pedantic and sometimes surly lot. They can be slow to see change in the industry, and rightly, often feel put upon.
But really, they care deeply and passionately about looking after other people’s money.
And for that, they do not get enough credit. Happy Christmas.
James Coney is money editor of The Times and The Sunday Times
@jimconey
