The opening session at day two of the Broadridge Fi360 Annual Conference fielded questions, insights, and practices from conference attendants, on topics including plan sponsor engagement, SECURE 2.0, and artificial intelligence (AI) in financial advice, among others.
Blaine Aikin, former Fi360 CEO and executive chairman, along with Broadridge Senior Vice President and General Manager Cindy Dash, began the session by recapping points included in day one’s opening remarks. Dash reiterated that the passage and implementation of SECURE 2.0 won’t allow for retirement plan advisors to become specialists in their own markets—they’ll need to branch out to other spaces, too.
“They will need to be prepared to handle financial advisory issues that come up,” she said. “There will be aspects of SECURE 2.0 that bring in opportunities, from emergency savings, 529s, Roth individual retirement accounts (IRAs).”
The theme prompted audience members to ask about plan sponsor engagement and employer fears of providing education due to fiduciary liability. With SECURE 2.0 expanding retirement access to a wider plan market, more plan sponsors may fear litigation as they enter new and unknown territories.
In his response, Aikin reminded advisors of the pros in offering a retirement plan and the provisions that come with SECURE 2.0—such as recruitment and retention.
“You have to start with the plan sponsors themselves to paint the picture of why this transition has to be made,” he said. “It’s important that they would be receptive to the idea for the attraction and retention of talent, and to make sure employees can reach something that is so far out of reach.”
The conversation brought on questions surrounding regulation, and how the regulatory space would respond to a potential growth of AI technologies in financial advice. Even if AI is subject to regulation, plan advisors would be wise to watch, and learn from, the technology, noted Dash. Even Broadridge will be incorporating AI technologies into their education due to the demand and prevalence behind it, she added. “No one has any doubt that it will be transformative, so embrace and learn from it,” Dash said. “If you haven’t made yourself aware of this technology, you should.”
Yet, even as AI tools like ChatGPT are all the rage, the technologies can never replace the emotional intelligence that comes with financial planning, and which can only stem from human professionals, both Dash and Aikin agreed. It’s all the more reason to discuss succession planning within advisory practices, and why organizations like the CFP Board are instituting and maintaining recruitment programs in universities to attract newer, younger talent, as 300,000 advisors expect to retire within the next years, Dash observed: “ChatGPT and technology won’t ever quite replace the human professionals.”
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