The survey of 200 intermediaries found that 40 per cent of financial advisers questioned in September 2001 claimed that they regularly used technology in front of clients compared with 22 per cent at this time last year.
Other key points of the research were that the number of advisers who use a back office system has risen to 90 per cent in 2001 from 65 per cent last year.
And, the number of intermediaries with an online presence has increased from 56 per cent to 80 per cent. The greatest increase in this area was in the number of bespoke sites with 46 of brokers questioned now having a bespoke site compared to 14 per cent in 2000.
Chris Baker, director of product marketing at The Exchange, said: “IFAs are under constant pressure to cut costs and improve the efficiency of their business. Technology is helping them do this and the findings of this research demonstrate the impact technology is having in the IFA market. This is also evidenced by the fact that we have seen a significant increase in the use of our IFA portal with 44 million quotes and transactions being processed in the first six months of 2001, up from 30 million in the first half of 2000.”
