Get online for good advice

This week's Investment Week Articulate page urges IFAs to use technology to improve the quality and range of services they offer to help them to broaden their client base. If there's a subject you'd like to see explored on this page, please email: [email protected]

In the late 1990s there was a great deal of optimism about how technology would assist advisers to: widen their appeal to a new generation of DIY clients; educate the public about financial planning and so open up new markets among lower earners; and streamline procedures to increase efficiency and improve margins via online processing. What followed, however, was different. We saw an initial flurry of corporate activity from Interactive Investor, Virgin Money, Ample from AMP and MoneyExtra - to name a few. But then the bubble burst and the reality of converting the technology dream became...