AMP has shared its plans to reposition advisers as “goals coaches” and pair them with artificial intelligence in a bid to lift its wealth-management arm’s revenue growth, a strategy it plans to leverage overseas eventually.
At an investor strategy day, the wealth giant also outlined its efforts to reduce its number of retail platforms from 11 to three – and from eight to one in the self-directed space – and a practice management partnership with Salesforce to reduce complexity for advisers and clients.
The outcome it anticipates is that the advice and self-managed super fund businesses will grow to comprise an additional 2 per cent of assets under management in wealth to offset other margin compression in the wealth-management business.
The major tenet of the advice strategy is the adoption of a goals-based advice model, which has already been rolled out to around 200 AMP Advice advisers across 24 practices.
Under the model, prospective clients and existing clients receive access to online goals-building tools to complement coaching from an adviser. AMP plans for the model to be scalable by 2018 and chief executive Craig Meller is forecasting potential overseas expansion.
“We see great potential for further international growth by extending our new goals-based operating system to international players and [leveraging] our strength in advice to disrupt international advice markets,” Meller said.
At a local level, implementation across the AMP advice businesses will continue between now and 2018.
AMP has identified 29 goals, which range from marriage, to working overseas, to bequeathing property to kids, to fixing cash flow. It says those goals will form the basis of the advice program it then creates for clients, using what it calls its “digital spine” and goals coaches.
“Our advisers will be able to leverage artificial intelligence and focus more on being that coach,” Jack Regan, group executive, advice, told investors.
Robo meets face-to-face
The interplay between adviser and technology under the goals-based model looks something like this, Regan says: Clients see a digital welcome video and have the opportunity to list their goals and rate them from most important to least important. They are then presented with a timeline for achieving their goals.
In the first meeting with the adviser, no advice is given and no products are discussed; the adviser sits with the client to go through a summary report. A “goals modelling engine” is then used to go through household finances and savings, then to create a projection of how much they would need to achieve their goals. A probability score is then given, along with a roadmap. To get to the goals, the bucketing approach is used, along with periodic client meetings. Products are also recommended at this point. To keep clients on track, the adviser is regularly prompted to re-engage clients who the tracking program shows are falling behind.
Adapting to new standards
AMP says the rollout of the goals-based model is a response to changing demands from clients and the regulator, including the Future of Financial Advice reforms and high benchmarks for education and ethics, which it says it is uniquely placed to adapt to.
“All of our advisers are appropriately qualified today,” he says, although the level of further education they may need will be determined by FASEA. “That will become apparent over the course of the next 18 months.”
