Technology could enable the profession to provide advice to more consumers.
Speaking at the NextWealth conference today (March 19), Ruth Handcock, Andy Curran, Mark Duckworth and Richard Wilson discussed how the sector has changed and what more needs to be done.
Handcock, chief executive at Octopus Money, said the firm was on a mission to prove holistic advice can be provided to someone in the mass market and said technology can, and must. enable this.
She said: “You can’t create change unless you have a technology system in place that allows you to change things quickly.
"Fundamentally what our industry struggles with is legacy technology which means we can’t improve things for customers and critically we can’t reduce the cost to serve which means the vast majority of the UK population is locked out of getting help with their money.”
Hancock said in five years she would like to see the profession be in a place where everybody can receive help.
“Help is not about investment advice or portfolio management, it is about someone walking into a room and saying I don’t understand money. Can you explain it to me?
“We hear customers say it makes them feel stupid and they don’t know where to go for help. So I would like the industry to get to a point where help is democratised,” she added.
Hancock also said the profession needed to get technology right and be more “forward thinking” about it.
Wilson, chief executive of Abrdn Personal Wealth, discussed how the firm adopted a subscription based business model providing more access to advice for more people.
He said: “In three to five years there will be less cost to the consumer, with better choice.”
Curran, chief executive of Standard Life said the industry needed to find a way to engage with the 10mn people who are not being engaged with.
“We have to find a way to engage with the 10mn people. It has to be democratised.”
Duckworth, chief executive at Schroders Personal Wealth said one way of better engaging consumers with their finance is by engaging the next generation of clients.
“I would like financial education to be in the curriculum because I think it will start to get children thinking about money and actually getting them to engage with their parents more about finances and that will feed into other aspects of the child's life as they grow up,” he said.
The panel agreed AI will be a way to drive engagement with people who previously have not been able to access advice.
alina.khan@ft.com
