“With advisers heading up stream towards wealthier clients who are too busy to do things for themselves and who to pay someone to arrange their finances for them – it is not surprising many do not see digital advice as priority,” said FE.
Technology lag
The company explained that the figures reflect the traditional timeline of product adoption whereby you initially have a few innovators in the digital advice market, followed by a minority of early adopters over the next few years. These will then be followed by the majority of advisers.
Meanwhile, 15% of respondents think a step-by-step online investment process in the best way forward, 11% back online video client appointments and 6% are betting on aggregation technology such as Yodlee.
However, 3% of advisers said they were close to launching an automated adviser, while 8% said they would do so in the next six to 12 months. About a third of those polled said they had considered offering the service in the future but had no immediate plans.
FE said that of those planning a robo offering, 23% favoured a system developed in-house, 26% preferred one bought from an independent software or data provider, with 29% wanting a white-labelled provider version.
