'It's a good time for people starting out': Financial advice enters new era

There’s no doubt the financial advice industry hasn’t had much good press lately but, according to one industry expert, the problems that have now come to the fore also bring opportunities.

“The industry will fix itself. When it does, the need for financial advice will always be there but the model in which it’s delivered to people is rapidly changing,” says Pat Garrett, chief executive of robo-investment firm Six Park.

“It’s a really good time for people starting out,” he says.

The future of financial advice, as Garrett envisions it, is people centric: a world where the client comes first, as opposed to an industry primarily focussed on making sales and promoting products. Yet this client-centric world will also be highly automated.

Take the growth area of robo-finance, a segment of the finance industry that’s booming overseas and which has recently started to take off in Australia.

“Robo-advice has automated a high percentage of the activities related to investment management. But behind it there are human experts who provide oversight,” says Garrett.

These human experts include technical developers, engineers, web developers, user experience specialists and people familiar with the world of investment management and finance. It’s all part of an industry many say will look very different in ten years’ time than it does today.

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