Mark Blackwell, head of corporate and specialist intermediary sales at C&G for Intermediaries, believed that the adviser market was moving more towards online and telephone-based sales as consumers looked to these mediums to get advice when it suited them.
register for the next forum
Blackwell commented: “The nature of all our lives is now that most people are working during the day so it is vital to be able to access advice outside these hours. Therefore, many are doing this online or over the phone and not booking time out of their busy lives to go to their local bank. So the clear message is that the intermediary market is in a position to capitalise and become even more important in delivering clients to lenders.”
Stephen Brown, senior technical director at Moneyquest, agreed: “It has not happened yet but we are seeing signs of a fundamental shift in the market. We are seeing online become more important, especially with first-time buyers who have experience of the internet. Those who don’t embrace this will only be able to work off a client bank for so long before it damages the long-term viability of their business.”
get the daily news delivered to your inbox
However, Blackwell also believed there were a number of barriers which were preventing younger people from becoming advisers, something which Richard Fox, chief executive of the Society of Mortgage Professionals, agreed with.
He said: “Young people are trying to get in but it is very difficult to join a small brokerage. There may be a problem that older brokers are unable to employ these people as they are small companies and they cannot afford to train someone up because of the overheads. Therefore, they want someone who is fully trained and can work straight away and these are likely to be older people who have worked in a bank before.”
