Australians’ appetite for financial advice has grown as they’ve become increasingly concerned about their financial situation, a new report has found.
The August 2015 Financial Advice Report from Investment Trends has found 8.7 million Australians said they have unmet financial advice needs, up from 8.5 million in 2015. And a growing number of Australians plan to seek out advice in the year ahead, the report indicated. Two-and-a-half million Australians said they would seek advice from a financial planner in the next two years, a 32% increase from 1.9 million in 2014.
"Australians' concerns with their financial situation worsened in 2015, notably with the impact of rising prices and not being able to afford extras like holidays," said Investment Trends Senior Analyst King Loong Choi. "This is fuelling the latent demand for financial advice among many Australians."
Australians are also willing to pay more for financial advice than a year ago. But Choi said the amount Australians are willing to pay still falls short of the cost of delivering advice.
“This creates an opportunity for advice providers to innovate and develop new advice models that reduce the cost of delivering advice and align fees closer to clients' expectations while retaining margins,” Choi said.
With cost factored in, the report found four times as many Australians who would prefer to receive lower-cost scaled advice than higher-cost face to face comprehensive advice.
