HNWs change tune on advice

Recent Investment Trends research indicates that since the pandemic, Australian high-net-worth (HNW) investors seem to be changing their views on financial advice offered by professional advisers.

As of September 2020, there were almost 500,000 HNW investors in Australia, defined as a person with over $1 million in investable assets, not including their home, business and non-self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs).

There has been a steep hike in the number of HNW individuals open to financial advice - 56 per cent, versus just 40 per cent 12 months ago. There was a fall in self-directed HNW individuals, those who prefer to make decisions on their own, dropping to 34 per cent from 49 per cent.

Despite the perceived increase in interest, this hasn’t translated to action, with the use of financial advisers (19 per cent), full-service stockbrokers (15 per cent), wealth managers (7 per cent) and private banks (5 per cent) remaining static amongst this crowd.