Technology will play an ever greater role in the advice industry in 2022, amid growing consumer expectations and greater risks and opportunities, says Origo.
According to Origo CEO Anthony Rafferty, the pandemic has accelerated digital changes in the financial services industry and going forward, the industry is set to pick up the pace in automating and adopting digital solutions.
Rafferty says: “There is no doubt that digitisation is going to have an increasing impact on the financial services market in 2022. More tech-savvy consumers and the development of technology-driven hybrid advice services mean industry participants – product providers, platforms and adviser firms – will be looking at how they are interacting with their clients and how they can improve their operations to benefit their business going forward.”
Rafferty says the permanent shift to hybrid working will require firms to adapt and secure their operations and procedures, while consumers are increasingly coming to expect instant access to services.
“The extent of the manual processing that still takes place in our industry is shocking,” says Rafferty. “Whilst understandably tackling operational inefficiencies has not been high on the agenda for many financial services firms during the pandemic, this is now beginning to receive renewed focus amongst providers who are seeing simplification, digitisation and acceleration of processes as the means to reduce costs and create operational differentiation in the market.”
Rafferty also expects greater connectivity to be at the heart of digital transformation over the next 12 months, with systems and software needed to run financial advice businesses seeking greater connectivity.
Lack of connectivity, Rafferty explains: “Not only increases risk to businesses but it makes for inefficient, overly time consuming and so costly operations. This issue needs product providers, platforms, software houses and adviser firms to connect with one another easily and with ‘done once and dusted’ integration.”
Finally, online security has become a key issue for firms, with whole workforces shifting to remote working. Rafferty warned that as an industry, the onus must be upon keeping the personal and confidential information about clients safe.
He adds: “All companies and especially those operating flexible working practices are going to have to become more cybercrime aware, employing the latest systems and solutions, such as dual-factor authenticated encrypted mail, to ensure we meet that expectation and to reduce business risk.”
