Buckles unveils pilot to smooth way for simplified advice

Sanlam-owned adviser firm Buckles is to pilot a basic advice proposition as a precursor to launching a simplified advice model that will target the mass market.

The pilot, which will run for a month, will be phone- and internet-based with no face-to-face interaction between adviser and client.

Customers will view a webpage and at the same time receive over-the-phone adviser guidance.

Provided the pilot, which is being carried out with selected existing clients, is successful, Rhyl-based Buckles hopes to remove adviser interaction and launch a simplified online advice proposition.

Nigel Speirs (pictured), chief executive of Buckles, said there was a clear need for simplified advice to engage the mass market.

‘It’s a cross between full advice and lower process advice. It’s using the internet with a real person talking to a client and carrying out the whole process on the phone and via the internet,’ he said.

‘The mass market won’t get advice post-RDR, I don’t think there’s any question of that; nothing is being done. The stats I have seen is that 10% of the public are getting advice at the moment, so there’s clearly a big need to work this out,’ he added.

Speirs said the pilot was being funded by Buckles, rather than Sanlam, and in future he hopes to secure government funding.

‘Buckles is funding it up to development where we can run the pilot. If it goes to where we think it will go, then we hope the Welsh Assembly will get involved,’ he said.

Sanlam will also launch two products for the UK, a general account and an ISA. It has not yet been decided whether these products will be whole of market.