Financial advisory services - towards a better understanding of the practice

Purpose and goal

The research project has fulfilled the purpose of providing new insights considering the practice of financial advisory services and how the needs of consumers are met in the advising sessions. This will be of use for the industry developing new services as well as for regulators. Knowledge of factors affecting the face-to-face advisory meeting in a financial context will also contribute to more recent research on the migration of consumers into digital channels.

Results and expected effects

Since the project involves different phases of data collection and different methodological approaches, many interesting results are generated. One of these is showing how financial advisers overestimate their clients´ willingness to take risks while underestimating customers´ confidence in their adviser. Negative effects for consumers of a high degree of confidence in the adviser have been demonstrated and also the importance of gender for both customers and adviser perceptions and actions.

Approach and implementation

The project has had a broad research approach where different types of data have been collected and analyzed. The project participants have conducted observations of financial advisory sessions at bank branches, interviews with customers and advisers and have also filmed advisory sessions for interpretive analysis. Data have been collected through questionnaires and experiments, both analyzed with statistical methods. Results have been presented at international conferences resulting in conference papers and published articles in peer-reviewed journals.