Financial services firms should play a greater role in ensuring client wellbeing, according to national IFA firm Continuum.
With today marking World Financial Planning Day, the focus is on this year’s theme for the day: the role of the financial planner in reducing stress and improving clients’ financial wellbeing.
Both financial services providers and advisers need to step up and ensure they are doing their part to help clients combat stress not only around their finances, but also their wider wellbeing, according to national IFA firm Continuum.
This does not just include their core financial services, but also offering more emotional, mental and general health support to clients.
Martin Brown, Managing Partner at Continuum, said: “Money is one of the most sensitive subjects for many of us to talk about. A good independent financial adviser will build up their relationship with their clients to the point at which they are often a trusted confidant.
“At Continuum we believe personal wellbeing is the key to clients enjoying a satisfying, balanced and prosperous future.
“The service from a good financial adviser should stretch way beyond just telling you what to do with your money. At Continuum our advisers are there to support clients and their families with many of life’s challenges, and we believe that is something all financial advice firms should offer as a core service.”
Continuum offers a wellbeing service to all clients and has also opened this service up to clients’ families as well as the IFA’s own staff.
The wellbeing service includes guidance on improving resilience, top tips for a better sleep, exercise, working from home, alongside more financially-focused wellbeing essentials such as budgeting and how to develop a healthy approach to money management.
One of the reasons Continuum chose to open the wellbeing service up to clients wider family members was a close correlation between the happiness of their clients and the wellbeing of their entire family.
Martin Brown continued: “During the Coronavirus pandemic a lot of our clients came face to face with their vulnerability and started involving the next generation and wider family members with their planning for the future.
“We soon noticed a strong correlation between how confident our clients felt about the future, and the wellbeing of their entire family. This stretched beyond pure financial concerns into worries about things such as health and education of younger family members.
“The impact of rising inflation and economic stress seen in recent times has only served to bring this correlation further into immediate focus, with many clients asking us to help them find ways to offer assistance to family members who were struggling.
“It is undeniable that client wellbeing and happiness is closely linked to that of their wider family. If financial services firms want to demonstrate how they can help improve their clients’ wellbeing, the focus needs to be on the wider family unit and not just the individual client. Financial advisers in particular need to involve younger generations with financial planning.”
World Financial Planning Day is an annual event as part of World Investor Week. It aims to help raise awareness of the value of financial planning, having a financial plan, and working with a financial planner who has committed to putting clients’ interests first.
It is hosted by the Financial Planning Standards Board, the professional body which awards the Certified Financial Planner certification. In the UK, World Financial Planning Day is sponsored by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment as a founding member of the Financial Planning Standards Board in the UK.
