Financial advice is not dying because people stopped needing help. It is dying because too much of the industry has become comfortable serving the easiest clients, the most profitable segments and the most digitised transactions, while leaving others to fend for themselves. That is not progress. It is abandonment dressed up as efficiency.
The profession must be honest about the market it serves. If we only build advice models for the people who are easiest to reach and most profitable to service, then we are not solving the access problem. We are simply drawing a smaller circle around it. And that is exactly the issue.
The uncomfortable truth is that too many advice journeys now begin and end with an app, a call centre script or a chat window. For simple transactions, that may be enough. But for real lives, pensions, inheritance, job changes, protection gaps, family responsibility, it is nowhere near enough. People do not need more product prompts. They need guidance, judgement and accountability.
And yet the market keeps drifting towards execution instead of advice.
That drift has consequences. Overregulation and compliance overload may push advisers away from segments that are complex, low-margin or administratively painful to serve. Once that happens, the gap does not disappear. It gets filled by unregistered, unregulated players who step in with slick interfaces and shallow solutions. The consumer may feel assisted, but they are often not being advised at all.
That should disturb every serious adviser. The profession cannot keep talking about inclusion while designing for exclusion. If the wealthy can be served through elegant digital journeys, then the mass market should not be left with transactional tools that collect information but offer limited guidance. A funeral policy bought in minutes is not the same thing as a financial decision made with full understanding. The industry knows that. The public often does not.
This is where the industry has lost its way: it has mistaken convenience for advice.
There is a better path, but it requires a change in mindset. Technology should not be used merely to accelerate sales. It should be used to widen access to proper financial needs analysis, so more people can understand what they need before they are pushed into a product. That is where tools like PPS Wealth Mentor matter, because they show what is possible when digital journeys are designed to support advice rather than replace it.
We need to use technology to make advice more accessible, not more exclusive. If we can create compliant advice journeys for more South Africans, then we are not just protecting the profession, we are serving the public properly. That is the standard the industry should be holding itself to.
What is needed now is not another debate about whether face-to-face advice is old-fashioned. It is not. What is outdated is the idea that proper advice should only be available to those who are wealthy enough, complex enough or commercially attractive enough to justify it.
The real question is simple: are we building systems that help people make better and informed decisions, or are we just building faster ways to sell them something?
If advisers want to remain relevant, they need to be braver about the market they serve. They need to advocate for tools that support real advice for more people, not fewer. Keep in mind, when the industry leaves the missing middle behind, someone unqualified will rush in.
That is not a warning. It is already happening.
Kindly note that this article does not constitute financial advice. The information provided is purely informational.
PPS is a licensed insurer conducting life insurance business, a licensed controlling company and an authorised FSP.