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Digital tools can transform the financial advice market – but it is about more than adopting technology. 

To work it must offer a blend of tech and human experience, says Simon Binney, business development director at Wealth Wizards.

“Firms using the digital advice model can serve far more people and grow their businesses significantly – but what makes for good advice is not just technology but good client engagement,” he said.

Technology of this kind is about knowing how regulated advice works in the UK and using years of experience to integrate technology with that knowledge to create an advice journey that provides a smooth, consumer-led, human-assisted approach, Binney says.

“The fact is only a minority of people feel confident in making their own investment decisions. We all need advice of one sort or another, whether that is basic guidance and triage to start investing or saving into a pension, or more complex advice for areas such as estate planning,” he explains.

“Consumer-led services for basic investment and saving needs, allows the client to self-serve when they want to and seek advice for more complex financial issues when they need to. 

“A blend of technology and human interaction, delivering the right approach for the client at the right time, creates a smooth and satisfying experience.

“Aligning technology with a firm’s advice policies, enables this consumer-led, human-assisted approach and helps advisers reach more people with regulated advice and guidance, while increasing revenues and assets under management for the firm.”

He says that advisers adopting digital tools find that rather than being bogged down in administration are able to focus more on the client’s goals and aspirations.