Is advice really all just about money at the end of the day?

I started as a journalist writing about financial advice straight out of University and quickly realised there was far more to it that first meets the eye. After a couple of years, my understanding of ‘planning’ in the broader sense and of financial coaching had been truly cemented.

Almost a decade on, I would never summarise what an adviser/planner does in such a simplistic nutshell. You can, therefore, imagine my surprise at a recent Professional Adviser event where the Q&A session revealed this is exactly how some advisers see themselves.

It’s usually conversations about ESG that end with an adviser arguing that they are yet to see proof of green investments bringing in more dosh for their clients than a less responsible-friendly option. This was an entirely different discussion – one about model portfolios. The adviser wanted a straight, black and white answer as to whether the solution would allow for his client to pocket more cash at the end of the day. The adviser ended his question with a phrase along the lines of ‘at the end of the day my clients just don’t care about anything except money, I have no other purpose but to make them money’.

Against the context of how my view has developed since I was a teenager, I was sad. Was this really how advisers saw themselves? I didn’t feel that the ones I spoke to felt that way. Sure, returns are the bread and butter, but there’s a caveat. The adviser wants to genuinely make their client’s life better. They want to be involved in all aspects, take the client on a fulfilling journey that encompasses so much more than cold hard cash.

I was left uneasy when this adviser made the statement they did, as were the panel of fund managers it was aimed at. So, I decided to do some digging. I started with our anonymous adviser survey PA Asks. I’ll be the first to admit that this is a minute sample section of the industry but it still gives some quite interesting insight and produced far more divisive results than I expected.

A total 51% of the advisers who responded agreed their clients are ultimately only concerned with returns. This came ahead of 44% who said ‘no’ and 5% who said they were unsure.

Admittedly, the question was vague without any wider context for respondents as to what I hoped to get out of it. Therein lies the magic. Several respondents who agreed their clients only really care about returns commented to say ESG wasn’t a priority. Interesting… except this discussion was never about ESG. This for me was a wider question as to whether all the soft skills we so often place on a pedestal for the all-round planner actually mean anything to the end client. Do they care about how you make them feel? Do they care about your financial coaching skills, your focus on their family, their wider situation or the ebbs and flows of their life? Intriguing these respondents’ minds went straight to the umbrella of ESG as the only thing existing in an adviser’s arsenal outside the ability to make them more money.

One adviser respondent said in the survey that their clients “understand that financial advice is more nuanced than just returns”. Another said returns are “only one aspect of clients’ objective. Bravo! Or perhaps not. The fascinating thing is I can’t actually answer the question posed in the headline. It’s entirely subjective. Subjective for the client and subjective for the adviser.

In this current world of Consumer Duty though, I’d suggest it is perhaps rather single-minded to suggest making money is all that matters. We are speaking here for a particular faction of society however – advisers’ clients are, broadly speaking, perhaps not as totally reliant on building wealth as others. To save you (and myself) from going around and around in circles, I’ll wrap up with a final thought. If it’s all down to client centricity, as the regulator says, then surely whether or not advice is only about making money is always at the discretion of each client.