Almost a third (30%) of financial advisers expect the age at which clients first engage with a Financial Planning professional to decrease over the next five years, according to new research.

A quarter of advisers have been making a concerted effort to attract the younger generation of potential clients, according to a new report from wealth manager Charles Stanley.

A larger number (68%) of IFAs expect more engagement from younger audiences over the next year, according to the white paper.

With 2020 and the Coronavirus pandemic throwing many people’s financial plans into uncertainty, two thirds of advisers surveyed for the white paper said they also expect to see an increase in clients being more active with their money in the future.

John Porteous, group head of distribution, Charles Stanley, said: “Millions of young people are getting more engaged with their finances, and with extra money in their pockets as a result of lockdown, they’ll be considering how to make it work best for them.”

Mr Porteous said the challenge for advisers was tapping into how to engage with this younger audience, particularly when the traditional advice model is now confronted with social media and ‘finfluencers’. 

Almost one in 10 investors (9%) said that the source of information they have turned to most to help decide on their investments is social media, with 7% now regarding it as their most important source of information, according to a recent report from Oxford Risk.

According to the Oxford Risk report, one in five investors (20%) aged 18 to 34 said social media channels were the most important sources of information for managing their investments. This compared to 4% of investors aged 35 to 54, and 4% of investors aged 55 and over who saw social media as their main information source.

In a recent column for Financial Planning Today, Martin Bamford, Certified Financial Planner at Informed Choice, wrote about the growth of trading tippers on social network TikTok and how Financial Planners need to get on social media to create their own content.