NextWealth named the best platforms for digital adoption and called out a contradiction in our most recent newsletter. We’ve included an extract below. Subscribe to get a copy each month.

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NextWealth’s digital process champions require a paper form (scanned or sent in the post) for fewer than 10% of processes.

Congratulations to this year’s digital process champions:

AJ Bell  |  abrdn Wrap  |  Fidelity Adviser Solutions  |  Fusion
Quilter  |  Raymond James  |  Transact  |  True Potential 

Financial advisers increasingly tell us that they consider a platform’s adoption of digital processes as part of their due diligence process. This makes sense – firms that are investing to digitise processes are investing in the future. We think our Digital Process Champion badge represents firms that are adapting and changing to support the future of financial advice.

Financial advice professionals on the NextWealth Research Panel receive a free copy of the research. We only ask that you fill out four surveys a year on topics we think are pretty interesting. In return, you get free access to our research.

While adoption of digital processes has slowed, we are delighted to see significant progress from a number of firms, in particular, abrdn Wrap, Quilter and Raymond James have joined the list of digital process champions, requiring a paper or scanned form for fewer than 10% of processes.

Why digital adoption won’t stall despite slowing adoption from advisers

I started this newsletter with a contradiction: three quarters of financial advisers want 99% of provider processes to be digitalised but only half (56%) use eSignatures.

Why are about a quarter of advisers calling for further digitisation of platforms when they haven’t yet adopted eSignatures? The contradiction was published in our latest Adviser Tech Stack report. However, I’m not that bothered by it as it’s not a long-term issue. I’ll explain why.

At NextWealth we’ve developed a segmentation model of the financial adviser market. One of the segments, Build to Grow, is made up of firms that employ younger advisers and that are actively looking to grow their businesses. This segment represents an important future of our industry and it comprises firms that rely heavily on tech to manage and run their businesses.

Another segment, Investment Advisers, is made up of consolidators and vertically integrated firms that have their own in-house investment solution. Again, financial advisers in these firms are big users of digital. We think this segment will continue to grow.

Succession Searchers, as the name suggests, are not in it for the long-haul and aren’t looking to change the way they do business.

The analysis by market segment is important. It would be dangerous to make decisions about the future of your business based solely on averages. At NextWealth, we are always looking to the future – and it looks digital. Well done to our digital process champions for leading the way!

Heather & The NextWealth Team

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