Are ‘proactive’ paraplanners the key to boosting client capacity?

Speaking with ifa, Contract Paraplanning Services chief executive Clinton Weekes explained that his company is currently looking for ways paraplanners can take on more complex tasks and become more proactively involved in the advice process.

“If we can retool all these paraplanners to become more like specialists in strategy and analysing client situations, I believe they could have a more proactive role in the advice process, rather than a reactive role. Right now we're reacting,” Weekes said.

“I actually think they could proactively be involved in the process of looking at a client file and actually coming up with suggestions for the adviser.

“Rather than [advisers] having to come up with the strategy off the bat, maybe we can proactively get involved in that and use the expertise of the paraplanners to start to make some of the suggested strategies and alternative modellings and things like that early on so the adviser has that information at hand.”

He explained that this would not only benefit paraplanners by providing greater job security for the future, it would also help advisers by freeing up more of their time, allowing them to take on more clients.

“The main benefit would be that, if the adviser doesn't have to sit down to consider all the alternative strategies that a client could have to maximise their situation, that's more time that the adviser could spend doing whatever else they want to do,” Weekes said.

Dr Ben Neilson, a financial adviser at Complete Wealth, agreed that paraplanners are well placed to take on additional roles within advice firms and doing so would give advisers greater opportunities to expand their businesses without reducing their quality of service.

“It’s an exciting prospect to see paraplanners evolve into roles with greater responsibilities in the advice process. Their detailed knowledge of the advice process, compliance, and client needs makes them natural fits for supporting advisers at a deeper level,” Neilson told ifa.

“By expanding their scope, paraplanners can provide even more value to clients, which also allows advisers to concentrate on high-touch, face-to-face interactions. This shift can also increase efficiency, enabling firms to grow their client base while maintaining high service standards.”

He added that with paraplanners taking on expanded roles, advice firms are able to scale more effectively, meet growing client demands, and improve accessibility for new clients, “all while maintaining a high quality of service”.

“This could ultimately benefit clients, advisers, and the financial advice profession as a whole,” Neilson said.

Weekes added: “It's something that doesn't really exist right now in paraplanning, and I'm thinking of that as a bit of a new role for paraplanners because, with the advent of technology, a lot of the paraplanner’s role is going to change.

“In the next one to two years there'll be a lot of technology that can pretty much do the manual part of what a paraplanner does but the expertise that a paraplanner has in their head is probably more on the side of analysis and strategy, which they could really help the financial advisers with.”

Were this to become a reality, one key area to consider would be the potential need for additional education requirements, particularly given the increased requirements for advisers that resulted from the royal commission.

However, Weekes argued that they would just be using the knowledge they already have, “they’re just using it reactively, this is just switching it to proactive”.

On the other hand, Neilson believes paraplanners probably would need to undergo additional training or certification, “especially if they are handling more client-facing responsibilities or complex aspects of the advice process”.

“While their technical skills are strong, qualifications in areas like behavioural finance, interpersonal communication, or even soft skills related to client management could be very beneficial, especially if they're to sit in on meetings to significantly streamline the delivery of advice,” he said.