Financial advisers have ‘never been so time-poor’

Speaking at the Adviser Innovation Summit 2021, Phil Pilgrim – general manager of partnerships and distribution at Implemented Portfolios – said time is one of the biggest issues in the sector and that “advisers have never been so time-poor”.

Mr Pilgrim cited the Australian Financial Advisers Wellbeing Report released back in May, which revealed that 82.5 per cent of advisers said they have no time or energy, while 81 per cent said they needed more hours in the day.

“The process of providing advice is getting more and more onerous,” Mr Pilgrim said.

“We’re time-poor, we’re stressed, we need more hours in the day and we aren’t spending enough quality time with clients.”

Mr Pilgrim said if any business is going to be successful they must understand customer values and home in on that, however that is an area advice is yet to home in on.

“The problem we’ve got in advice at the moment is we’re still wrestling with where we add value and as a consequence many advisers are trying to do it all,” he said.

“When you overlay the increasing compliance burden and the effect it has on time it takes to deliver advice today, advisers are faced with a massive challenge.

“Pretty much, you either need to make a tough decision about what you’re going to spend your time doing as an adviser and what you’re going to outsource. Or otherwise, you’re going to have to drastically limit the amount of clients you can truly help.”

Speaking to ifa last week, adviser and founder of Australian service On Your Own Two Feet, Helen Baker, said the “over-regulation” of the advice sector is impacting financial planners’ mental health and driving them out of the industry.

“Over-regulation is putting an enormous amount of pressure on advisers’ mental health issues, the single adviser operation is being forced to merge, and many are leaving the industry due to the financial pressures, study pressures and increased CPD demands,” Ms Baker said.

“The increased regulation means advisers have less time in front of clients, plus increased costs to the practice including the need for more back-office support.”

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.