Financial advisers have more than doubled the number of clients onboarded each week over the past 12 months, according to Intelliflo.
According to Intelliflo’s Advice Efficiency Survey 2025, the average firm onboarded 13 new clients each week, up from six in 2024. It marks a 116% rise in the number of clients onboarded year-on-year.
To cater for the growing number of clients, advisers are seeking to digitise more of their processes, the research found. The ideal level among advisers would be to digitise 77% of their workflows to boost efficiency, with one in five (21%) aiming for full digitisation of all processes.
The findings showed advice firms have now digitised nearly half (43%) their processes, up from 10% in 2024.
Despite this, advisers still spend on average 3.5 hours on fact finding per client and 2.6 hours on presenting recommendations to clients, while 4.1 hours is spent on implementing financial plans.
The research found that onboarding takes around 15 hours per client, of which 54% is not spent with the client. With 13 clients onboarded each week, Intelliflo estimates advisers spend around 113 days each year on implementation alone.
Richard Wake, chief operating officer at Intelliflo, said: “Technology has become central to the advice journey and it’s incredible to see advice firms scaling their client base so significantly. But growth brings new challenges. Advisers want to go further, faster when it comes to digitisation. That’s why we’re focussed on delivering integrated, intelligent technology that cuts down on admin and frees up time where it matters most: their clients.”
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