The advice gap needs to be addressed in a different manner, with less blame on individuals for not understanding or seeking advice and more onus on the advice profession to meet clients' requirements.
This is the view of Ben Mulroney who said a fresh approach to financial advice is needed.
Ben Mulroney has been a Wealth Management Partner within True Potential Wealth Management LLP since February 2021 in a bid to empower people to take more control of their finances.
Speaking to FTAdviser, Mulroney explained how he has used his financial advice business as "a force for good" by offering free financial literacy courses and collaborating with local charities and community projects.
In his view, not enough work like this is being done within the industry and a different model is needed.
Advice gap
When deciding to set up his business, Mulroney said he talked a lot about the advice gap.
“We both went, ‘this is rubbish’," Mulroney said. "I don't deny that there is an advice gap, but the terminology bothers me.
“It smacks of an arrogance from within the financial industry, that basically says, ‘if only more people knew how amazing we are, if only more people understood what we do, they'd come running to us’.
"If there is a gap of people seeking out financial advice, don't blame the customer, maybe look at yourself as an industry and go, ‘What are you not doing? What is it about you that's not meeting their requirements?’,” Mulroney said.
It was with this perspective that Mulroney, alongside his wife Jenna, built their advice proposition.
Ben was conscious that high fees and other barriers exist to entry and did not want to become part of the problem.
“We’ve developed a whole strand of our business that delivers simplified advice, completely free of charge,” Ben explained.
“We provide pension consolidation, pension transfers, Isa transfers, completely free with no initial charges.”
This stream of the couple’s business came about after a lead generation company they used told them that few advisers wanted to deal with the lower value leads they were finding and potential customers were being left underserved as a result.
Ben now offers an initial phone consultation free of charge and then uses technology from True Potential so the client can continue to benefit from financial advice services on a self-elected basis.
Financial literacy
Last June the couple set up a non-profit financial education initiative for schools to help equip students with the skills needed to effectively manage their finances after they leave school.
The programme, called ‘Mastering Money’ was created from a realisation that schools receive little support around financial literacy.
Jenna said: “Our daughter is sixteen and she’s off to university soon.
"We were thinking about the implications for us as a family, and thinking how many other parents and young people just don't have the kind of resources in schools to be able to cope with those kinds of big financial decisions.”
Currently the duo have half a dozen local schools signed up to the programme and are open to taking their offering further.
We focus primarily on Cheshire-based schools, because it's easier to go along in person and deliver. But we're not against the idea of spreading our wings further afield - we have spoken in schools further away,” Ben said.
jane.matthews@ft.com
