No single vendor dominates the market for financial planning software and advisors are divided fairly evenly on whether they prefer self-hosted applications or applications hosted on the web, according to InvestmentNews.

This was one of the findings of a technology survey conducted online by the publication from mid-April to mid-May.

Of the 242 financial advisors who responded to the survey, 53 per cent were registered investment advisors and 43 per cent were brokers-dealers. The entire survey was completed by 86 per cent of respondents.

Some of the other key findings of the survey:

On average, firms reported spending 5 per cent of their annual gross revenue on technology. The maximum spent by a survey respondent was 12 per cent.

According to the survey, 22 per cent of advisors didn't use any dedicated customer relationship management package, and among those who did, no single vendor controlled the market.

Some 44 per cent of respondents have been using their primary financial planning software for five years or more, while 42 per cent have been using it for one to three years and 14 per cent reported using their primary software for less than a year.

Some 56 per cent of respondents reported using an email archiving and compliance service, and the remaining 44 per cent used no service.