Asset managers and other financial product providers got a warning this week: The needs of financial advisors and their clients are changing, and it's the providers that need to adapt.
That message was delivered emphatically to financial service executives by Pershing chief operating officer Lisa Dolly during her keynote address at the Insured Retirement Institutes Marketing Forum in New York on Thursday.
You need to be the easiest company to do business with, Dolly said, noting such transformative trends as a new generation of both advisors and clients, as well as the continued growth of fee-based practices and the shift of baby boomers from asset accumulation to distribution.
The face of the advisor will change, Dolly declared. Theres going to be a large cohort of retiring advisors and young advisors. They are going to be more diverse, and more will be working part-time. We have to adapt services to the new demand, and develop tools to communicate and interact with advisors.
ASSET INFLOWS
She also cited explosive growth of investable assets as baby boomers retire and cash begins to come off the sidelines as investor worry following the financial crisis abates. Pershing alone saw inflows of $13 billion from January through April, Dolly said.
This influx of money, plus the increasing need for financial advice as an aging population seeks security for retirement, offers financial product providers a unique opportunity to develop new products, strategies and services, she said.
Mutual funds, Dolly said, could serve as a model for the type of product introduction that proved successful in an earlier era. The Money Market Institutes personal retirement income solution strategy, she added, can serve as a good roadmap for solutions providers in the current era.
