That said, these market changes and the opportunities they might provide, are only going to be as good as you make them, and it will come down to ensuring you have the clients to support, plus, of course, access to the products and solutions they require.
In that sense, like any year, 2024 is going to be about working smart, working at maximum capacity and growing income/client and adviser numbers, and ascertaining if you have the right support for your business to do this, whether appointed representatives (AR) of a network or a directly appointed (DA) firm seeking the right distributor.
Doing the best for our appointed representatives
From our perspective, as a network, we believe a major part of our role is not just to provide our appointed representatives with the best of everything, but to also give them back the time they might ordinarily spend, for example, on compliance work or regulatory upgrades, and to allow them to invest that time, resource and money back into what they do best, advising clients.
That seems highly important to us and advisory firms, particularly given their regulatory responsibilities are growing, plus of course, we continue to see major measures put in place, such as Consumer Duty.
This seems even more vital, particularly as client casework has become ever more intensive, and the requirements placed upon advisers are much more sustained.
The ongoing work
Take, for instance, recent weeks and the constant changes in pricing and products we have seen from lenders. When seeing clients, this is no longer a ‘one and done’ interaction which ends with a recommendation, that ultimately the client will secure.
The ongoing shifting of rate means that, particularly in the period after the initial recommendation, advisers are spending a lot of time constantly checking on product changes. This is a lot of work to provide the client with a ‘better’ rate that can save them money, compared to the initial one discussed and agreed upon.
There is a huge amount of work involved in doing this, and this has to be recognised in terms of the income generated by such ongoing activity, the resource required and how different this is to the direct-to-consumer experience offered by a lender.
Constantly checking and rechecking products is not a service that lenders are going to offer their customers directly, and there is a growing feeling that advisers may need to run two types of propositions given the constant swapping and changing of rates.
Juggling tasks
One proposition might be what we would call a ‘lender equivalency’, essentially the initial recommendation which puts the client in the same position they would have been in by going direct to the lender. As mentioned, the lender is not going to be reviewing the customer’s options over the next six weeks; they book the rate at that point in time and that is the product the customer gets regardless of what happens in the future.
Of course, advisers wouldn’t be comfortable with this, but it can’t simply be a situation where they are spending all their time constantly reviewing the market, without being paid for this work.
So, instead they offer a second proposition to the client which continues to check and review rates and product changes, perhaps each week, up until the last point possible and the client pays for this work. That values the work of the adviser, and ensures the client is in the best possible position at the point of completion, whether remortgage or purchase.
This year appears to have started as 2023 ended, but with added impetus from a product/rate perspective, as lenders react to swaps and the need to be competitive. The first point here is to make sure you have access to all these lenders and providers, and can supply your clients with whole of market advice that benefits from these constant updates and upgrades.
Perhaps you may need to shift network or distributor in order to make sure you get this access, and you are getting the best all-round service and excellent terms as well?
And secondly, make sure you value the time and the work and effort that is required in order to get the client into the best possible position. In that sense, firms should have no qualms about charging for this re-evaluation work as it signals them out from the ‘competition’ and shows the true value of advice and the service offered.
Overall, 2024 has the potential to be a very good year for the advisory profession – make sure you’re with the right partner to make the most of this.
