Italian financial advisors have an average of 227 clients and follow 42 households. Instead, significant assets are usually at stake if one considers that 61% of financial advisors estimate each client’s average assets under management to be above 120 thousand euros. It allows 42 percent of Italian financial advisors to manage a portfolio above 30 million euros. These data emerged from the first semi-annual survey conducted by the Study and Research Center of Anasf, the trade association, among more than 600 members in the May-June 2022 period.
On which investment solutions are customers’ savings directed? More than half of the portfolio is in managed savings (51 percent), while the insurance component weighs another 29 percent. Compared to the national average, the share allocated to cash is at 14 percent. Finally, 8% goes to assets under administration
With this in mind, more than half of the consultants (57 percent) managed to achieve revenues between 25,001 and 90,000 euros in the last six months, while another 22 percent came in the 90,001-200,000 range.
“What distinguishes the professionalism of the financial advisor is the mode of interaction with investors,” said Anasf President Luigi Conte. He added that professionals, even after the pandemic and exponential growth in the use of digital tools, continue to prefer a personal relationship with their clients at least 60 percent of the time. This is opposed to a digital connection, which, although functional for some aspects of advice, will never replace the human factor.”
Who financial advisors are and who they target
The profile of those in the financial advisor profession emerges with some clarity from the survey: they are men in 88 percent of cases, and have an average age of 56 years. Half are not college graduates (35 percent have a bachelor’s degree, 7 percent have a master’s degree, and 4 percent of financial advisors have a master’s degree). Economic-legal disciplines are the most frequent academic background, accounting for 67% of the studies carried out by advisors.
61% of financial advisors registered 22 years ago, between the 1990s and 2000. But advisors’ clients are also, on average, older: 62 percent are at least 51, and more than a quarter of the total is over 65.
“The issue of scarce generational turnover, which now characterizes so many professions, does not spare that of financial advisors, as those under 41 now represent only 3 percent of the category,” commented association president Luigi Conte. He added that the association had fielded numerous initiatives to support the growth of young talent. The time has come for a systemic intervention to help young people approach this profession.”
