How open finance is tackling the advice gap

Advised individuals are, on average, £47,000 better off over a 10-year period in total wealth, including pensions, compared to those who don't receive advice. 

Yet according to the FCA's Financial Lives Survey 2024, 15.8 million UK adults needed support regarding financial products but did not receive it. This represents a crisis of accessibility that is leaving millions to make uninformed decisions about their financial futures. With inflation remaining elevated and real wages still recovering from recent cost-of-living pressures, households are navigating tighter budgets and more complex financial trade-offs. The need for professional advice has never been greater.

With the average minimum investable asset requirement sitting close to £50,000, rising to £250,000 for comprehensive wealth management, traditional advisory models immediately exclude most people who would benefit from professional guidance. Meanwhile, FCA figures show that only 38% of UK adults feel confident making long-term financial decisions on their own, creating a dangerous gap between need and access.

There are also clear demographic issues at play. Research shows that 88% of advised clients are over 40, meaning younger generations facing more complex financial decisions around student loans, housing costs, and gig economy incomes are navigating these challenges largely unsupported. This isn't sustainable, particularly when 47% of consumers actively want more personalised advice, according to Moneyhub research.

Technology lowers the barrier to entry

The answer lies in reimagining what advisers spend their time doing. Open finance and smart data can remove the administrative burden by automating the labour-intensive elements of advice: data gathering, verification, categorisation, and initial analysis that currently make serving smaller clients uneconomical.

In a typical onboarding process an adviser might spend hours manually inputting client data from bank statements, payslips, and pension statements, then reconciling discrepancies and chasing missing information. With open finance integration, this entire process compresses into minutes. The advisor receives a complete, verified financial picture with full customer consent, freeing them to focus on understanding life circumstances, exploring goals, and providing genuine guidance.

The impact can be transformative. When technology handles routine data processing, advisers can serve more clients without compromising quality. The same human expertise becomes accessible to a much larger market.

Research from St James's Place reinforces why this matters: 84% of those who take financial advice report benefiting mentally or emotionally, beyond just the financial gains. This emotional value, reassurance, confidence, and peace of mind that comes from professional validation of financial decisions, cannot be automated, and with one in three people reporting using AI once a week or more to help with money matters more than ever, effective financial advice requires human empathy, judgment, and relationship-building skills.

Building for continuous engagement

The traditional model treats advice as a one-off transaction: a comprehensive review, a report, periodic check-ins. But modern consumers expect continuous engagement, particularly when their financial situations change rapidly through job moves, relationship changes, or unexpected expenses. As a result, consumers have been turning to AI models, such as Chat GPT, for financial advice. According to Lloyds Banking Group research, 28.8 million individuals used AI in the last 12 months to help manage their money. Enabling access towards professional human advice will limit the risks attached to using AI models.

When advisory platforms integrate open finance data feeds, they can monitor client finances in real-time and proactively flag issues or opportunities. This transforms the adviser-client relationship from reactive to proactive.

The infrastructure requirements are significant but increasingly accessible. Firms need secure data aggregation, robust compliance documentation, scenario modelling tools, and seamless integration with pension providers and investment platforms. But these capabilities are now available through specialist fintech partnerships rather than requiring massive internal development. Forward-thinking advisory firms, such as WPS Advisory with its LifeStage Money app, are already demonstrating that this model works, reaching previously underserved segments while maintaining compliance and delivering measurable value.

Scaling professional judgment

Technology is not a silver bullet, however. It has its limits, and it cannot replace professional judgment about complex situations, navigate the emotional dimensions of money discussions, or build the trust that makes clients comfortable sharing difficult information. These remain inherently human skills that years of experience and training develop.

But technology excels at pattern recognition, data analysis, compliance documentation, and scenario modelling with speed and accuracy that humans cannot match. It can instantly compare a client's situation against thousands of similar cases, flag potential issues with tax efficiency, or model dozens of retirement scenarios. This amplifies the adviser's capabilities rather than replacing them.

The opportunity extends beyond individual firms. If technology can make professional advice accessible at lower asset levels, it addresses a genuine social need. Firms that solve this puzzle will capture significant market opportunity while delivering meaningful social value.

Ultimately, closing the advice gap requires acknowledging that the traditional delivery model cannot scale to mass market needs. Technology provides the infrastructure to make professional advice economically viable for millions more people. But success depends on deploying that technology in service of the adviser-client relationship, not attempting to replace it.