As the true value of financial planning shifts away from pure investment management to more comprehensive life planning, technology that would seem to disintermediate financial advisors empowers them with more options for communicating with and serving clients, according to a new report by William Trout at Celent.
“In the new world of financial planning, value is derived from the ongoing dialogue as much as from the end product or plan,” according to the report.
While technology plays a role in forcing that shift through the commoditization of some aspects of planning, it also supports it by giving advisors more ways to communicate with their clients more frequently.
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“Financial planning has always lent itself to delivery through an advisor due to its innate complexity,” Trout wrote in the report. “Demographic realities have brought to the fore the emotional considerations inherent in addressing topics such as retirement and estate planning.”