Fintech should make advice ‘enjoyable’

At a media roundtable in Sydney yesterday, YTML director Terri Ho said a lot of emotion is attached to financial advice, however it tends to become really dry and go down to the numbers.

Further, she said that a lot of the time, trust is more important for the client and that it’s those emotional aspects that clients are looking for.

“We have to make advice enjoyable. We have to make the experience of receiving advice enjoyable. And it's certainly not enjoyable,” Ms Ho said.

“People rank it as low as having to go to the dentist. It's just not an enjoyable experience.

“I've recently had an annual review with my financial adviser, and I've sort of reached her two or three times because it's not an enjoyable or fun experience.”

In talking about the inspiration behind YTML’s Seido Integration Hub, recently partnering with SuiteBox and AstuteWheel, Ms Ho noted that the most common complaint she hears from advisers around technology offerings is the lack of connectivity between them.

“There are so many fantastic applications out there, but nothing connects,” she said.

“We're talking a really short period of time to connect versus the adviser practice to make that connection happen. It could take months, or to build something of their own could take years.

“What this does is allow that connection to happen in the shortest possible time so that you can have that connected experience straight away. It's trying to speed up the biggest problem of connectivity across applications.”

As for what fintech firms need to do to be successful in the advice space in the long term, YTML general manager Damian Murphy said its core philosophy is agility and making businesses as agile as possible.

He noted that if they're agile, they can respond to change as well as grow and cope with that growth.

"If you were to go to an advisory firm today and you walk in and you say, 'I'm going to gift you now 100 of your best clients', how does the firm respond to that, and most firms would say, 'I need to put on a paraplanner. I need to put on a couple more assistants'," Mr Murphy said.

"A whole raft of costs come with that gifting, so for us it's about how do you future-proof a business to make it scalable so when the change comes and when the growth comes they're in a position to actually really leverage from it.

"Agility is absolutely key. No matter what happens, what change is going to happen, they have to be agile."

Adrian Flores

Adrian Flores is a deputy editor at Momentum Media, focusing mainly on banking, wealth management and financial services. He has also written for Public Accountant, Accountants Daily and The CEO Magazine.

You can contact him on [email protected].