Back to the office on Thursday (if you want)

Advisers will probably get a boost from being able to return to face-to-face meetings with their clients from Thursday.

Monday, May 11th 2020, 9:57PM

Murray Weatherston

New Zealand will shift from alert level three to alert level two on Wednesday at 11.59pm.

That means that businesses can reopen, with appropriate physical distancing and safety measures in place, and cafes and bars can admit customers.

Financial Advice New Zealand chief executive Katrina Shanks said it would mean many advisers could go back to their offices, and could meet clients as long as they had good safety procedures in place and met the Government requirements.

“Many of them have been providing an amazing service recently, using technology really successfully. But for some to be able to go back and access files they couldn’t access remotely [will help].”

She said Financial Advice NZ would offer health and safety guidance this week and WorkSafe would appear on a webinar for advisers the following week to help them understand what compliance would look like.

“Advice is about relationships and many of those relationships are nurtured face-to-face.”

Many advisers would be “anxious” to get back to work to start developing relationships with new and existing clients, which was harder to do online, she said.

But she said at the same time the experience had made many advisers realise that businesses could operate in many different ways and they had embraced technology in a way not seen in the past.

Mortgage and insurance advisers were facing a tough period in terms of new business, she said. There would be a delayed impact for some because clients on premium holidays might wait until the end of those before deciding whether they could continue with the cover.

“That’s when the value of advice comes to the fore when the adviser works with them to find a solution.”

But adviser Murray Weatherston said there would be little change. “Maybe we can all go to our offices but we’re still supposed to stay at home when we can. Who’s going to take someone out to a cafe if you don’t know whether you can get in?”

He said he expected widespread uncertainty about job security to be a problem for some advice sectors for some time. “My guess is there’s a lot of brave faces being put on … it’s going to be hard to do business.”

Tags: coronavirus Covid-19 Financial Advice New Zealand Murray Weatherston