Bluerating | April 2024
Financial consultancy is today called upon to carry out a task of great social responsibility on which the future of our country could also depend.
To succeed in this epochal challenge, financial consultancy can make use of some principles that come from two apparently disjoined disciplines: demography and maieutic.
Demography is the study of phenomena that refer to the population and in particular to the analysis of its evolution, maieutic – practiced by Socrates – is the procedure with which the Greek philosopher led his students to achieve knowledge by finding it within themselves.
Demographic projections give an extremely clear picture of our country: in less than thirty years, Italy will have lost a total of 4.5 million residents as a result of the aging population and a consequent decline in births due to the reduction of women in childbearing age (source Censis).
The impact that all this will have on the welfare system will be impressive. Italians don’t seem to worry much about all this, caught up in their daily lives and suffering from a congenital myopia.
To be honest, protection and complementary social security not only do not seem to be on the agenda of Italians but – perhaps more worryingly – not even on that of those who govern them and should support them in their life choices.
And this is where financial consultancy and maieutic come into play. The financial advisor – thanks to the trust he enjoys among his clients – has the unique opportunity to act with three moves.
The first move is to make your customers aware of what will happen in their future, the second is to understand their life plans, the third is to propose solutions to realize them.
The main life projects for Italians are very clear (FINER source): maintaining or improving the current standard of living with an additional income (78%), supporting their children in realizing their projects (71%), having the means to be able to look after parents in case of need (66%).
These desires seem to clash with some ancestral fears made even more acute by the geopolitical situation: fear of the cost of living (60%), inability to manage unexpected events (51%), loss of job (45%).
It is surprising that 83% of Italians declare that they have not had the opportunity to talk about all this with their banking and insurance representative.
An even more difficult task for young people: 40% of Italians aged between 18 and 34 are not interested in building a pension fund and almost a quarter of them declare they are not familiar with the topic (source Bankitalia).
If we put all this data together, a unique opportunity emerges for those who want to make the profession of financial advisor a real mission.
The unique opportunity is to make your customers more aware of what is happening and will happen to them, helping them overcome their fears and realize their life plans.
To do this, we need professionals trained on issues related to protection, supplementary pensions and credit, capable of supporting financial advisors in the arduous task of rousing Italians from their torpor.
We also need an entire industry that becomes more proactive and proactive, capable of intercepting the fears and dreams of Italians, overcoming the former and actively contributing to the realization of the latter.
Nicola Ronchetti