Octopus  

'The advice gap is not far off from narrowing'

“Firms I've been speaking to in the last few weeks, have been preparing their consumer duty annual board reports and they've reviewed the cost to serve and now they're refining it," she said. 

"They are now much clearer on the target market, and they are partnering with us to redirect those clients that are out of that target market."

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She said advisers are keenly aware of their duty of care for people and want to be confident that they are redirecting customrs to the right place. 

Greenwood said: "They want to be really confident when they redirect people to a home, it's something that is reducing regulatory risk, not causing any reputational risk, is improving their commercial risk. And actually, if we can help be a solution for each of those levels of risk, it's a wonderful partnership, we are part of the jigsaw."

She also said Octopus Money were working with larger advice firms to support them to reduce the cost to serve clients within their own business. 

She said: “We really need to partner with firms, and actually by using our methodology and helping those large firms reduce the cost to serve it allows two things

"It allows them to have a future proof stream of clients that may not be wealthy now but may be the children or the grandchildren of those wealthier clients who may go on to inherit money."

Greenwood said it also helps these firms build a stream of future advisers who go through Octopus' training programmes to become financial coaches. 

She added: "Rather than the traditional paraplanner route, it's another route to building well-rounded qualified advisers of the future who actually then create that sustainable business model."

Diversity 

Greenwood said half of Octopus Money customers are women and 60 per cent of the financial coaches it has are women and highlighted the industry needed to remeber the advice gap was sometimes unequal. 

She said: “The way we need to try and approach the gap is to make sure we have a skills base and a population that is representative of the community that we’re trying to serve. 

“If you bring and build a team that is diverse in every possible way, you spot opportunities, you spot risks and that allows you to make sure you’re tackling all of the problem and not just a little part of it.” 

alina.khan@ft.com