Report into ageing and advice needs

A new report has found that over 50 per cent of financial advisory practice clients are aged 60 and over, and nearly half are retired or no longer working, resulting in markedly different advice being required.

The Future Ready IX report conducted by Business Health and Midwinter Financial Services found that this dramatic shift in clientele demographic meant advisers needed to be prepared. A good example is whereby those not working do not require income protection insurance, life insurance or accumulation advice, but still, need advice on how to best manage what they do have.

Advice practices need to offer services that they might not have needed to a few years ago, such as aged care, estate planning, Centrelink or philanthropic advice. Advisers may need to upskill to continue to best serve clients.

According to the report, however, only a quarter of advisory practices surveyed were considering expanding their range of solutions for clients.

Other findings include that on average, financial advice businesses were holding steady revenue of $1.2 million over the past two years. Profit declined from 28.2 per cent to 24 per cent year-on-year as practices increased business investment and made modifications to fee structures.

Seventy-four per cent of advice businesses were expecting to increase revenue, with 64 per cent of those expecting to increase profitability across the coming 12 months.

The report was built off the back of data collected from over 200 advice practices.