Advisers put the brakes on new client acquisition
Faced with economic and political uncertainty surrounding Brexit, many financial advisers focused their energies on client retention instead of new client acquisition in the 12 months to March 2019. The average adviser only added 15 new client relationships in this period, down from 19 new clients in each of the preceding two years. Despite this fall, significantly fewer advisers cited new client acquisition among the main challenges they dealt with in their businesses (14%, down from 26% in 2018).
“Advisers shifted their priorities in response to the market climate,” said Recep Peker, Research Director at Investment Trends. “New client acquisition was largely on hold given the uncertainty, and instead many advisers focused their efforts on client retention and reducing the cost of providing advice.”
“Advisers face challenges on multiple fronts and will require more support from their service and technology partners than ever,” added Peker.
Regulatory change/uncertainty (58%) and compliance burden (57%) continued to dominate their list of concerns, while market performance (27%) and Brexit (26%) were also key issues. Further, significantly more were dealing with what they described as poor provider service levels (39%, up from 35%) and replatforming issues (28%, up from 20%).
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