Consolidation to continue
He also expects the trend toward consolidation within the industry to continue, M&A trend to continue as scale is increasingly important given cost pressures and increased regulation on the one side and wider global growth issues on the other.
It is for this reason that the firm decided to do a deal with SEI, as Killingbeck said, for it to make the level of investment deeded to bring it up to a sufficient operational level timeously would have been impossible.
For Brett Williams, SEI MD, the world Killingbeck describes is an exciting one and one he too expects to see.
“There has never been a greater need for advice, but equally, it has never been more expensive and more risky to provide that advice from a regulatory point of view, nor from the point of view of keeping up to date with how technology is chaning and what the expectations of the client are,” he said.
Asked why it has taken so long for the wealth management sector to embrace technology, Williams said the challenge is that clients want still to feel that there is a personal touch.
But he added: “Every single client we talk to is focused on how do we respond to a digital age? because there is a demand from their clients to be able to interact with financial advice in a similar way to how they interact with the rest of their lives,” a demand that is beginning to force change in the industry.
“If you think back, it was not that long ago it was very difficult to get valuations, that was what drove the rise of platforms. That is what the sector needs to remember. Technology is a disruptor, but it can be a positive one that enables better communication,” he said.
Adding: “In the 21st century you have to get scale through tech not through people but that technology is in support of not instead of people and it will allow more time to focus on the end client.”
