The role of a financial advisor goes beyond offering investment advice. Holistic wealth management focuses on a client's complete financial picture, from investments and retirement planning to tax strategies and estate planning. It's a comprehensive approach that encompasses all aspects of a client's financial life; however, many holistic advisors overlook one key aspect – their clients’ credit needs. Loans play an essential role in an individual’s financial life. They provide a means of accomplishing or accelerating a variety of financial objectives, such as buying a home, funding college education, or growing a business:
- Home Loans: 64.8% of homeowners in the U.S. have a mortgage (Census Bureau, 2022). The ability to offer mortgage loans gives financial advisors the opportunity to guide their clients through one of most significant financial decisions they will make.
- Education Loans: With the average cost of a4-year college education between $104,108 (for an in-state public university) to $223,360 (for a private university) and the average federal student loan debt at $37,388 per borrower (Education Data Initiative, 2023), education loans have become a fact of life for most people. In fact, 74.8% of undergraduate students accept student loans, making education loans an essential part of financial planning for most families.
- Business Loans: 71% of small business owners rely on their personal assets to finance their business. With 3-out-of-4 of your business owner clients financing their businesses by liquidating personal investments to fund working capital, you are missing an opportunity to help your clients grow their business without disrupting their personal investment strategies.
Without the ability to offer loans, financial advisors put themselves at a disadvantage by missing opportunities to deepen relationships with their clients, forcing their clients to look elsewhere for credit solutions and forgoing potential revenue opportunities associated with sourcing loans for their clients. Holistic wealth management, by its very definition, should encompass all of a client’s financial needs, and treat the client’s liabilities as strategically as their assets. Providing loans isn’t just a value-added service; it’s essential to providing comprehensive, personalized, and holistic financial services.
Technology has made it easier for financial advisors to deliver tailored credit solutions to their clients. Platforms, like UPTIQ, enable financial advisors to seamlessly coordinate investment strategies and loan portfolios and integrate credit decisions into their clients’ financial strategies. With credit playing such a critical role in your clients’ financial life, the question isn’t should you be offering loans to your clients – it’s can you afford not to.