Technology will allow advisers to become “augmented” and should not be viewed as a means to replace them, according to Jason Bates, co-founder of Monzo and Starling Bank.
Speaking at the PFS annual conference today (November 12), Bates discussed the secrets behind driving digital transformation.
He said there was a shift happening in retail financial services from commodity products to intelligent services.
Bates said the wealth sector was in a “weird space” at the moment and there was some polarisation.
He said this was because tech solutions were expanding but there was also still a big focus on in-person interactions in the sector.
According to Bates, there was still an emotional trust barrier among people where they wanted a human to hold their hand and help them to make financial decisions.
He explained how there were robo-advisers on one side offering low cost services delivered digitally and then traditional private banks and family offices for UHNW clients but noted neither of those were the “right solution”.
He said there needed to be a hybrid approach where people could have the power of the human touch but with real time digital interfaces.
It was about embracing technology to allow advisers to take on more clients, but to still retain the relationship with the client where they feel they are receiving a highly personalised service.
Bates compared advisers using technology in their businesses as having an entire paraplanning team whose only job was to make them scalable.
“Technology gives you that level of support to allow advisers to do what they do best and it's the underlying platform that is allowing them to do this,” he added.
Bates highlighted the key thing for advisers to consider was that it cost a lot less to scale their businesses using a great tech set than having an entire team dedicated to just that.
He reiterated to members in the room they needed to stop looking at technology as replacing them but instead view it as augmenting them.
When asked what was beyond digital, Bates replied that it was AI which could be seen as a threat but it would be a while before we see it play out in financial services.
alina.khan@ft.com
