| Good morning, and welcome to another working week.
I was speaking to a senior journalist last week, and it turned out we had much more in common than struggling football teams (he’s a lifelong Spurs fan and I follow Manchester United). We both share a passion for financial education.
The proportion of people receiving expert advice about their finances, rather than growing as financial products proliferate and the world becomes more complex and volatile, is shrinking.
Just 9% of adults in the UK now take advice from a professional about how best to navigate one of the most important areas of their lives. Fewer than one in 10. The Advice Gap is widening.
Continuum conducted a survey last year. One of the questions we asked was who do you turn to for financial advice? Yes, the number one answer was a financial adviser, but still only for 14% of respondents. Nearly as many, 13%, took advice about their finances from friends and family.
This frustrated and worried both of us. Unless more people can be persuaded to take proper informed financial advice, they are doomed to repeat the mistakes of previous generations over and over again, making poor decisions that ultimately prevent them from living their best lives.
In years gone by, the likes of The Man from the Pru took financial awareness to doorsteps up and down the country. It wasn’t a perfect system, but more people were actively encouraged to think about their financial future.
At Continuum, some of our advisers have introduced a not-for-profit scheme that will see them take financial education into classrooms in their local area. This is something that, as a firm, we’re passionate about and encourage.
If we can promote financial education in schools at a younger age, then more people will be better able to take informed decisions about money when they are older.
Financial education shouldn’t be limited only to schools. It’s essential that it permeates the workplace and wider society.
We try to educate our existing clients, writing to them every week with easy-to-digest information that’s not intended to sell but rather to create more awareness about what they can do and how they can do it, to give them the knowledge to make decisions in an informed way.
The steps we’re already taking, both as a firm and an industry, are a start. But there is so much more we can and must do.
Imagine if we can come together as an industry, design coherent financial education modules to be taught in schools, to take financial education deeper into the wider community. Consumers would see UK financial services working collaboratively to try and deliver the best outcomes for clients.
Then we really could help more people live their best lives.
As always, thanks for listening.
Martin.
Martin Brown, managing partner at Continuum, was talking to Gary Parkinson, former financial journalist at The Times and BBC.
Gary Parkinson
Media Relations
T: 0345 643 0770 M: 07756 668500
garyparkinson@mycontinuum.co.uk / press@mycontinuum.co.uk |
