Is 43 working days a year the cost of slow digital adoption for the advice industry?

Financial advisers are losing an average of 43 working days a year, performing tasks that could be automated with technology, researchers have found.

Parts of the advice process that could be automated but are currently completed manually, are adding an average of 13 hours to each new case, the study revealed.

Wealth Wizards, provider of the Turo adviser technology platform, surveyed 140 financial planning businesses, employing a total of 21,000 financial advisers, about their use of technology. Businesses were asked to estimate the average amount of time being spent at their company on the end-to-end advice process where technology is not being fully embraced – the respondents, on average, revealed that they spent 20 hours per client on this process.

Asked to estimate the amount of time spent in the same process, which includes fact-finding, risk-profiling, market quotations, solution reviews and recommendations plus the drafting of suitability letters, when it was fully automated with technology, this process took only seven hours per client on average.

The time-saving in the advice process (13 hours per case) equates to 43 days, on an example of 25 full advice cases, assuming a 7.5 hour working day. This time saving could then be spent on further relationship management or client base growth depending on the aspirations of the individual advice businesses.

Andrew Firth, founder and chief executive of Wealth Wizards, said: “Our research confirms our belief that financial advisers are squandering vast numbers of hours nationally by not taking advantage of new technologies that streamline and underpin administration, solution mapping, report writing, compliance tasks, audit and reporting. Recognising that the automation of the advice process is only a component part of the overall relationship management with clients, the time saved by automation is still significant at 43 days.

“This can seriously hinder their ability to manage compliance and scale, which impacts on their bottom line and – more importantly – limits time available to spend with clients. For bigger organisations, like wealth managers, adviser networks and banks, the lost opportunity is huge.

“The data shows that more than five million people in the UK would like to receive financial advice in addition to the 4-6 million people already receiving it. The 26,000 advisers currently available to help these people must embrace technology to bridge the advice gap with intelligent automation of processes and a great advice experience for more clients.”

The study came as Wealth Wizards announced it had released a new modular approach to its automated advice platform, Turo, aimed at increasing the pace of digital adoption in the advice industry and enable advice businesses to scale-up.