The director of the Manchester-based firm told this publication about his firm's plan to deal with the next generation of financial advisors.

The director of Northwest-based financial planning firm Pareto says the UK business is taking the initiative with its new training programme. 

Stuart Carswell, who was promoted to director level alongside his colleague Paul Stones this year, told this publication that the career trajectory of an advisor has changed and now Pareto is looking to be proactive through the launch of a training scheme.

“We have MiFID II and GDPR coming in; these are issues that will affect us in the short term. In terms of longevity, where are the new advisors coming from? Where are you going to get the training from?" said Carswell. "It used to be the old industrial branch; start at the Brittanic Assurance, then you move to the banks and they give you the grounding to become an IFA. And that used to be the training platform.”

“Towry have this but they are focusing more on the sales side, and that is great to have the sales skill. But who is training them to do the job properly even with a degree? I think the financial services degrees are great but it is all knowledge and text-book based. Who is giving the advisors the soft-skills to talk to a client, and run through the report and have a discussion of risk? That’s what we are looking to do from our training programme. I want someone to sit with client, give good advice and good service; it’s about building long term relationships. And the by-product will come. We can train that into our less experienced employees, and that will stand them in good stead for their careers.”

Pareto, which specialises in providing independent advice to high net worth private clients, is not the only firm to set up its own academy for financial advisors. This publication reported in July that Old Mutual Wealth had launched two new courses for its up and running training school. The wealth management industry more broadly has sought to increase focus on in-house training to deal with a perceived shortage of staff, with firms as varied as UBS, BNP Paribas and St James's Place developing programmes.

During the interview, Carswell admitted that the training segment was only part one of the firm’s growth plan.

“It will be a three-pronged approach. We need experienced advisors who can come in and take over our clients straight away. Ideally, we only want between 80 and 100 clients per advisor, to ensure we continue to provide our clients with the very best financial advice on an ongoing basis. We have also recently set up a portfolio department, where we have trainee IFAs joining our team who are diploma qualified but don’t have the experience, this will help to ensure we continue to maintain the very highest level of service across all of our clients.”

Pareto was founded 10 years ago, and is headquarted in Manchester. The firm recently announced that it had a turnover of £4.1 million, and is predicting further growth of 15 per cent in 2018.