Expert: Chris Jones, Proposition Director at Dynamic Planner Facilitator: Stephen Wall, Founder of The Wealth Mosaic
Overview:
The role of technology in adapting to new regulations, particularly the recently introduced Consumer Duty.
Consumer Duty is the most recent regulation of significance in the UK. It is considered an opportunity for client-focused transformation, though large established firms may find implementing changes more difficult than smaller ones. In particular, there is debate about balancing scale and productivity with independence and meeting individual client needs.
Another major theme is the challenge of client engagement. How to get clients, especially the middle-aged demographic, to truly engage with their finances, the advice process, and embrace technology.
Discussion:
Solutions discussed include leveraging techniques from other industries like retail and leisure to drive engagement, using data and analytics to understand clients, and technology to improve communications and interactions. Participants also addressed the use of technology like videos and interactive tools to augment client communications and measure subsequent engagement lift.
The value in developing frameworks to capture evidence on positive client outcomes - resulting from advice interactions, assessing satisfaction, and surveying clients on fee perceptions to ensure charges are viewed as fair and transparent -also came under scrutiny.
Opportunities:
Ultimately, wealth managers need to identify opportunities to differentiate service offerings and develop fee structures to match client needs and preferences. Here, transparency and fairness were cited as key, and the difficulty in placing a price on a human relationship was also discussed.
In summary, regulation and client needs are driving change, but technology and human advisers will likely need to work together in a hybrid model to deliver positive outcomes.
Key takeaways:
- Regulation and client needs are driving change to a hybrid model
- Consumer Duty is thought to be an opportunity for client-focused transformation
- The challenge of client engagement and the use of technology to drive further engagement were both discussed
- Surveying clients on fee perceptions to ensure charges are viewed as fair and transparent is a possibility
- Wealth managers need to identify opportunities to differentiate service offerings and develop fee structures to match client needs and preferences
