Andrew Braun

Client portals and online fact-finding tools are tipped by Netwealth to see significant uptake over the next couple of years based the platform’s latest AdviceTech Buyers Guide. 

The 2024 version of the report, due to be released on Thursday, found nearly half of advice firms (46 per cent) currently utilise online fact-find/risk profiling tools, with another 34 per cent looking to adopt it over the next two years. 

Likewise, client portals have seen a significant rise, being used by 36 per cent of advice firms with another 38 per cent planning take-up. 

Furthermore, the report found a total of eleven technologies remained as “high potential” for adoption for a second year in a row, including business reporting tools, client data tools, and scaled advice technology.  

Several technologies were added to this category this year: online surveys for client feedback; cashflow, budgeting and account aggregation tools; off-platform asset management technology; and standalone regtech solutions. 

But why Netwealth considers these high potential technologies important – and why they should be on every advice firm’s “watch list” – is because of the higher-than-average adoption by AdviceTech Stars, Netwealth’s moniker for firms at the forefront of technology adoption who serve as the industry benchmark. 

“If you read between the lines there’s upwards of 10 or 12 technologies which vary from internal staff technologies and staff knowledge technologies to advice technologies like fact finding…that are really interesting and advice firms need to keep their eye out of because they’ve been used by a lot of advice firms already,” Netwealth marketing general manager Andrew Braun tells Professional Planner. 

“These high potential adoption technologies are worth considering as part of an advice firms roadmap. When they’re making their technology decisions, they should keep an eye on these things and keep an eye on advice firms and find out how they’re using them.” 

There are significant changes expected in the wholesale space as well, with the report finding 26 per cent of advice firms overall managing significant portions (more than 25 per cent) of client portfolios in off-platform assets. 

This includes assets like private equity, direct property, unlisted property trusts, private business ventures, and private debt funds. 

“There is clearly a growing trend in the market around wholesale investment and what we have seen is that it’s typically, in the past, been managed inhouse and what I mean by that is through the use of spreadsheets or CRMs [customer relationship management systems],” Braun says. 

“We’re seeing a number of the platforms, including Netwealth, build out a custodial administration service. The trend is definitely towards moving [away] from an inhouse solution.” 

Furthermore, the report found there are several technologies that have reached a “level of maturity” in the market either because of mass adoption (used by 75 per cent of advice firms) or being too niche and so have hit an appropriate threshold for their purpose. 

Examples of mass adopted tools are cloud-hosted email (90 per cent) and file storage services (82 per cent), super and investment platforms (87 per cent), professional development tools (83 per cent), digital signature tools (78 per cent) and customer relationship management systems (77 per cent). 

Examples of “mature but not mass” adopted technology included client reporting (58 per cent), managed accounts (54 per cent) and people management technology (50 per cent). 

The adoption of AI has continued to grow with 50 per cent citing widespread or limited usage in 2024 (versus 11 per cent), along with 32 per cent “considering use” (versus 34 per cent last year). 

Netwealth’s AdviceTech research presented at the Accelerate Summit in September showed only 5 per cent of advice firms are using AI widely, while another further 44 per cent are “dabbling”, piloting it or using chat pods. 

The Buyers Guide report found the number of AI tools used by a firm has increased from an average of close to zero (0.3 in 2023) to 1.8 in 2024. 

The top three reasons firms are using AI is to summarise client meetings (58 per cent), to create content (e.g. articles and images) 49 per cent, and back-office process automation. 

“The data indicates that we’re seeing it being used largely around summarising client meetings and I suspect that’s because…most of the tools that are really designed summarising meetings,” Braun says. 

“Likewise, creating content – [generative] AI tools like ChatGPT, which the data does suggest is being used a lot – is very good at creating content.” 

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