Hargreaves Lansdown has said it will pilot its "augmented advice" service in the first half of 2023.
In its full year results today (August 5), the wealth manager said it had made "significant progress" on launching its advice offering since announcing its plans earlier this year.
The FTSE 100 company said: "Our augmented advice proposition will establish a brand new experience for clients, incorporating insightful tools like financial well-being dashboards and calculators with nudges and coaching to provide an enhanced level of insight that supports them in hitting their financial goals.
"We have made an experienced hire to lead both this initiative and our face-to-face advice business."
Hargreaves Lansdown added 92,000 new clients in the year to June 30, taking its total client number to a record high of 1.74mn.
The average age of new clients is 36, bringing an average of £15,600 to the platform.
Hargreaves Lansdown chief executive Chris Hill said the “difficult backdrop” in 2022 had hit markets and dented investor confidence throughout the year.
“As we have seen across the industry, this has led not only to reduced asset values, but also to subdued flows for many direct-to-consumer services and lower activity across wealth management as a whole,” he said.
Hill said in recent years the platform has seen clients diversifying their portfolios, and increasing their weightings to the US, China and tech stocks, particularly on the Nasdaq.
The market turmoil led to the company's assets under management dropping by 9 per cent to £123.8bn, compared to a 30 per cent rise at the same point last year to £135.5bn.
Pre-tax profit slumped 26 per cent to £269.2mn, though the company increased its dividend by 3 per cent to 39.7p per share.
Hargreaves Lansdown will launch a US fund in the second half of next year, as it focusses on developing investment solutions next year.
Revenue on funds, which make up 48 per cent of average AUM, rose 9 per cent to £254.5mn in the year, which HL said was down to higher AUM levels.
Revenue on shares dropped by 24 per cent to £194.9mn, and client-driven deal volumes plummeted by 32 per cent.
“The drop in deal volumes and revenues year on year primarily relates to the significant boost seen last year on the back of Pfizer announcing the success of their vaccine trials in November 2020 and the elevated deal volumes during the lockdown months of January 2021 to March 2021,” the company said.
Hill added the company's focus is firmly on servicing our clients, disciplined cost management and delivering its strategy.
"We remain confident that it will deliver outstanding client service, strong shareholder returns and market leadership for HL."
sally.hickey@ft.com
