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What’s next for financial advice? That is what we asked advisers in the Midlands. The last 18 months hardly requires a recap, but what did we learn from it?
The answers are not necessarily simple, but there are many positives. Advisers and clients alike are benefiting from remote working and hybrid advice, and advice businesses have made good use of the opportunity to reflect on how they run their daily operations.
It would be misguided to outline one ‘correct’ way to progress, though we can likely agree that the best advice firms have reconsidered their technology solutions and communications. It is perhaps ironic that videoconferencing tools have become so essential at a time where the centre of Birmingham is being dismantled to make way for HS2.
I am well aware of this, having ventured into the city for a roundtable debate with some of the Midlands’ finest. During the debate we delved into the lessons they learned from lockdown and how high-quality advice can prepare and assist clients when major downturns and uncertainties emerge.
From what I can see, it looks like most advice clients in the Midlands are able to depend on forward-thinking and reliable financial planners. Long may it continue.
Lockdown posed a steep learning curve for many of us and it was no different for advisers in the Midlands. Many had to adjust to working from home for the first time ever, some found it to be a lonely place and others had to content with running a business with looking after young children.
We brought together three leading advisers from the Midlands – all at different stages of their careers – to discuss what they have learned about themselves, the advice profession and how best to serve clients since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Phil McGovern, managing director of MPA Financial Management of Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, Sarah Seeley, a director and financial adviser at Kind Wealth of Oldbury in Sandwell, and Lena Patel, a chartered financial adviser and founder of ISJ Financial Planning in Leicester, outlined their main takeaways. Lee Dineen, senior vice president at PIMCO, gave his thoughts from a provider’s perspective, too.
While schoolchildren across the country spent lockdown hunched over their textbooks at the dining room table or enjoying a ‘forest school’ experience during many family walks in the countryside, advisers were learning many lessons of their own.
At our fifth and final 2021 regional roundtable organised by PIMCO and Citywire, advisers from the Midlands shared a wealth of knowledge amassed during lockdown – from having deeper insight into themselves and how they work best to realising greater efficiency and productivity – which they are now applying to a ‘new normal’ for the advice profession.
What role do bonds play in the portfolios of the next generation of advisers and their clients? Regardless of the answer, you need a global bond fund manager you can depend upon.
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