However, large product providers going direct to clients remains a top concern.
The question ‘What is the biggest threat to your business today?’ has been asked at four consecutive Change the Game conferences (2015-2018), with the top two consistently featuring as ‘robo advice/direct investment platforms’ and ‘large product providers going direct to clients’. Last year, both options gained equal top share in the poll (37% each of 315 respondents), while this year,’ robo-advice’ dropped to 25.5% (419 respondents), with ‘large product providers going direct’ down slightly but still the top concern at 32.5%.
The conferences, held in Manchester on 7 June 2018 and in London on 21 June 2018, were attended by a record 809 financial advisers, paraplanners and product providers and featured keynote presentations by Dave Coplin, futurologist and Chief Envisioning Officer of The Envisioners Ltd and Nick Eatock, Intelliflo’s founder and Executive Chairman.
Nick Eatock, Intelliflo’s Executive Chairman comments: “It’s interesting to see that robo advice is becoming less of a concern for advisers. I think many are realising that they can actually harness the technology to develop their own form of robo-advice, that sits alongside and compliments their broader financial advice expertise. There remains a scepticism about what the large product providers might do in terms of going direct to clients though and only time will tell if that is something that is justified or not.”
