I attended the CISI Financial Planning Conference in Windsor this week and I can report that, despite all the challenges, the mood, or the vibe as many call it these days, was a good one.

Judging by the very expensive cars in the car park, times have been good recently for Financial Planners.

It was good to catch up with familiar faces and also interesting chatting to many new Financial Planners at the conference, many of them running their own firms or some who had just sold theirs.

There has probably never been a better time to be a Financial Planner if you are running a robust, well managed, profitable business. I heard over and over that margins were good and the demand for professional financial advice seems only to rise.

There is no doubt, from what I was told, that the Treasury plan to add Inheritance Tax to unused pensions from 2027 has only boosted the demand for advice.

I attended many sessions and there were some key themes that came through; the move towards higher professional standards, the desire to provide a better service to clients and the increasing integration of Artificial Intelligence into Financial Planning, with several sessions on this topic.

There was, however, one session that caught me slightly by surprise as it was against the grain of the current drive to consolidate and accumulate assets. It was by the influential Financial Planner Warren Shute of Lexington Wealth.

As he mentioned, many consolidators have grown rapidly by acquiring the assets of financial advice firms. This is now a familiar model and I am agnostic on whether this is a good thing or not. To my mind there are good consolidators and bad ones but the desire to build bigger Financial Planning firms is a natural one and if the sector is to serve more people then larger Financial Planning firms will be one solution.

Warren, however, believes that simply accumulating assets is pretty boring and a very dull way to do (Financial Planning) business as it focuses primarily on acquisition of assets and not clients. He may have a point.

In his view, wealth management of the holistic style is much more interesting, far better for clients (who can afford it) and generally a lot more enjoyable to provide.

Listening to him talking about his array of client events, including nights with magicians, wine tastings and exclusive chef’s table events I could see what he was getting at.

Financial Planning, indeed all business, should be fun and enjoyable and it should involve a rewarding, long term relationship with clients from which both sides benefit.

Boosst founder Keith Butten made the similar points in another entertaining session, the gist of which was, “if you’re not having fun why are you doing it?”

These are all things to reflect on post conference but given the positive and ebullient atmosphere at the conference perhaps there is much to be said for focusing more on the “fun” aspects of Financial Planning and perhaps less on the “funds.”

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Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and a journalist with 40 years of experience. This topical comment on the Financial Planning news appears most weeks, usually on Fridays but occasionally other days.  Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Follow @FPT_Kevin 

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