Wealth and asset management executive director shares her insights with WP
Canada has one of the highest per-capita rates of licensed financial advisors in the world, but access to advice is narrowing due to both structural and systemic issues.
That’s a key message from Jasmina Hazuria, executive director of wealth & asset management at Capco, the tech consultancy that specializes in driving transformation in financial services, who notes that much of the population where wealth was accumulated (boomer era) is already invested.
“New advisors would need to find strategies to pull assets away from mature advisors,” she says, adding that younger investors often take a DIY approach. “They like to do it themselves and need stronger cases to justify spend on paid advice in an era where free advice is available on social media.”
While Capco’s research reveals these as significant barriers to entry for new advisors, there are others:
- Start-up Capital: It takes time to build a book of business and thrive as an advisor. Advisors who operate as independent business owners must personally cover the costs of licensing, compliance, marketing, and other overhead expenses. This model requires significant seed capital or personal savings to manage business expenses and income fluctuations — often for a period of up to 12 months.
- Compensation Models and Client Volume: While some firms provide a base salary to support advisors in the early stages of their career, many require advisors to build a book of roughly 100 clients before reaching a sustainable income level. Opportunities to inherit or buy books of business is limited.
- Mentorship and Training: Young advisors need coaching, especially in the first few years. This is a critical role played by a mature advisor and few have the capacity or time to provide support. Capco’s report, Scaling Financial Advice in Canada through AI and Digital Transformation, discusses the possibility of leveraging AI to provide training and mentoring, but these tools have yet to be developed to maturity.
In rural and underserved communities, challenges are compounded by Canada’s fragmented licensing regime.
“It makes sense for many advisors to team up with other licensed individuals, such as accountants, lawyers, or mortgage brokers to service a customer holistically and share costs,” Hazuria notes. But these teams tend to cluster in urban centers. “In rural areas where building a team may be difficult, holistic servicing requires a single person to hold multiple licenses or a client to seek multiple people for advice.”
High household wealth thresholds are another sore point with many firms insisting on minimum asset levels that put advice out of reach for younger or less affluent Canadians.
“High thresholds ensure firm profitability and capacity management,” Hazuria acknowledges. “The cost for professional, personalized advice is high given the lack of automation, integration and manual intervention required.”
But while robo-advisors and partial service models have emerged, she argues they cannot match “the holistic personalized advice that is equivalent to a full-service option.”
AI’s key role
Technology does have a critical role to play in the financial advisory model going forward though with Agentic AI set to be transformative.
“Agentic AI in the context of wealth and financial advisory is about AI systems that proactively act on behalf of advisors rather than just providing static analysis,” says Hazuria.
She explains that, unlike traditional AI that only analyzes data on request, agentic AI can proactively:
- Initiate tasks: Schedule client follow-ups, generate meeting prep materials, or draft portfolio recommendations.
- Monitor client activity: Track account changes, market movements, or life events and flag relevant opportunities.
- Personalize communications: Automatically draft emails, educational content, or alerts tailored to individual clients.
- Suggest decisions: Highlight potential financial moves or rebalancing strategies with justifications, leaving final decisions to the advisor.
“By enabling this level of proactive support, agentic AI helps advisors scale personalized service without compromising quality,” Hazuria says.
AI is already reshaping the advisory industry and Hazuria shares some of the ways that firms are using it.
“Firms are launching branded AI solutions that assist with tax return preparation and analysis, provide portfolio reviews, and generate recommendations to help meet predefined financial goals,” she says. “For advisors, AI is proving effective in areas like lead generation, CRM integration to enhance marketing or track client activity and life events, and portfolio management platforms that can quickly analyze data.”
Increasingly, advisors are also bringing recording devices into client meetings to facilitate notetaking and action planning and Hazuria says technology also promises to overhaul the client experience.
“A fully reimagined journey requires less human intervention,” she says, explaining that instead of manually filling forms, AI could capture data conversationally across digital channels, automatically generate documents, and deliver prepared summaries to advisors.
But she insists that innovation cannot come at the expense of safety.
“Data privacy is on the top of the list, along with ensuring AI powered advice aligns with client’s risk tolerance and time horizon. Firms need to ensure that there is a balance between using AI to power financial advisors vs. replace financial advisors,” she stresses.
Finfluencer challenge
One of the biggest shifts in investor behavior is the rise of finfluencers and Hazuria doesn’t dismiss them as a threat but sees them as a challenge for the industry to evolve.
“Finfluencers push advisors to stay current and on top of the news. While some may consider it noise, I believe that it’s a way of testing/validating and keeping everyone on their toes,” she says, arguing that the key is to adapt delivery. “The wealth management industry must respond with approachable, transparent, and bite-sized education in free and easily accessible forums.”
However, even if clients are ready for digital-first advice, many advisors and firms are not.
“The average age of the advisor is 50. Many have well established operating models that require sustainability and stability rather than disruption,” Hazuria observes. “The issue is less about the technology itself and more about how it’s introduced and managed. Too often, scope is reduced midstream, MVPs are released too early, first impressions are poor, and user feedback disappears into a void.”
Hazuria says that firms must involve end users early, maintain transparency, and prioritize training so advisors not only adopt but fully leverage new tools.
Looking ahead
Looking ahead five years, Capco sees the potential for a more inclusive and affordable system that includes:
- Predictive indicators that identify clients likely to need financial guidance, triggering automated outreach with free, general advice. These outreaches can include recommendations to connect with advice channels or practical tips for managing bills, saving more effectively, and protecting credit scores, helping banks reduce delinquencies and loan losses.
- Accessible advice models provided by financial institutions across multiple channels, available in both paid and free formats. Free offerings, powered by AI, are designed to be compliant, personalized, and practical, ensuring clients can easily act on the guidance.
- AI-trained, technically fluent workforces operating in cost-efficient environments lowering the expense of licensed advice, making professional financial support more affordable and widely available.
“Good means that equitable, affordable, and trusted financial advice in Canada is no longer the exception but the norm,” Hazuria says.
