The financial advice arm of Quilter has set up a telephone-based service focused on increasing client access to professional planners amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Quilter Financial Advisers’ (QFA) service will offer advice to customers who may not otherwise be able to access to financial advice and is a “key step” in the firm’s ambitions to increase “the accessibility of professional financial advice across the UK”.
It will focus on customers who prefer a telephone-based service rather than face-to-face, or people with less than £50,000 ($61,478, €56,926) in investible assets who have been unable to access face-to-face advice.
The telephone-based team delivers a full financial planning service including advice on mortgages, protection, investment and pensions.
Numbers
The service was launched earlier this year and is now fully operational with five advisers and plans to expand shortly with the recruitment of two more.
The team has six support staff, made up of paraplanners, admin backup and appointment makers.
They already have around 2,000 clients, with average customer assets of around £25,000.
Increasing demand
Darren Sharkey, managing director of QFA, said: “We know there are millions of people in the UK that would benefit from having financial advice. And this is not just in terms of pounds and pence, which is obviously important.
“This is about that feeling of financially security and wellbeing. Something that is priceless, particularly in the current climate.
“However, not everyone is able to access face-to-face advice, perhaps because of where they live, or feels comfortable with the intimacy of a face-to-face conversation in their home.
“We also know that many advisers are approaching capacity and there is considerably more demand for advice than there are advisers. One of Quilter’s primary goals is to make advice more accessible and with this telephone-based team QFA will have the capacity to help more households receive the advice they need.”
QFA was created in 2019 and includes the former Charles Derby business and Lighthouse Financial Advice, as well as Lighthouse Mortgage and Protection.
