“If you are a consultant looking at everything else for the client – long-term pension planning, insurance, IHT etcetera – then you could do a full fact-find for a set fee across all those aspects. But in terms of financial planning, it is just not possible to get the depth that you should be able to. That said, getting robo-advice is better than getting nothing.”
Herberts acknowledges the importance of opening up tailored solutions to a larger client pool, and, while he says that development of such products is still a thing of the future – though some firms have already set about implementing change – he believes that the industry will eventually prove its versatility.
“We realise that there is a gap,” he said. “We have addressed it on the investment side, but on the planning side we are not quite there in terms of a model where each client can sit down with their respective adviser. It is difficult to scale for small clients, and this is why robo-advice has come to pass.
“It is very important to the health of the nation that everyone gets the right financial advice. It is a gap that is not being filled, but the industry will eventually work out how to make a return on it – we are just not there yet.”
