Financial Planning – New Client Concerns

While working with a financial advisor for financial planning has been a common theme over the past decades, the specific concerns of clients tend to change over time. As the world changes, clients’ ideas of the type of investments they want and their financial goals change as well. 

 

An Increase in Focus on the Environment

One of the prominent changes to what clients want in financial planning is in the area of the environment, governance, and social factors. Simply put, people are willing to sacrifice a portion of their potential profits to focus on investments that do good. They want to plan for their financial future while remaining socially conscious and focusing on investments with a positive impact. 

 

An Increase in the Desire for Holistic Advice

In the past, financial advisors just had to make suggestions about finances, including investment portfolios. However, clients now have increasing demands. They want a more holistic approach, which should include some element of family planning and life coaching. Overall, clients want to be ready to navigate life with advanced planning. 

This holistic approach also applies to the overall financial planning approach. One study found that 87% of financial advisors rely on complex models to allocate clients’ capital across many asset classes. 

 

An Increase in Availability of Advice (On-demand)

With technology advancing at a rapid pace, people are becoming accustomed to receiving services on-demand. This also applies to financial services. There is a growing trend of clients wanting to be able to reach their financial advisors easily for small bits of advice between scheduled sessions. This also corresponds with an overall increase in the demand for financial advice. COVID led to that increase in demand as more people realized that they were not as financially secure as they thought. 

This goes hand-in-hand with the increasing use of technology to offer financial planning services. There are more virtual communications than before, something that COVID accelerated.