A recent survey showed that the vast majority of independent financial advisors (IFAs) would not recommend digital assets as investment options.
An Opinium poll, published yesterday, showed that about 9 out of 10 independent financial advisors would not recommend venturing into M stocks or digital assets. The survey of 200 IFAs indicated that acceptance of the two origins remains very low in the UK, despite their growing popularity and adoption.
Cryptocurrencies have grown exponentially in the past year and have reached record levels of value. The same has happened with stock memes like GameStop – whose rising numbers are attributed to increased social media interest. Experts also argue that many non-specialists have been drawn to virtual assets during the pandemic, thereby boosting growth.
93% of IFAs disagree with the idea that cryptocurrencies are a great investment option and advise avoiding them. Also, 95% of IFAs advise against investing in meme stocks. Additionally, 91% of IFAs surveyed indicated that they would be concerned if a client had the idea of investing in any of the assets, mainly due to strong regulatory interest in them and their worrisome volatility.
A third of the survey respondents admitted that they saw an increased interest in cryptocurrency from their customers. However, only 14% of respondents said they had noticed their customers’ interest in meme stocks.
Outside the UK, a New Zealand survey for the Financial Services Council (FSC) of 2,000 respondents found that one in five people were confident investing in digital assets. 20% of respondents indicated that they have already invested in cryptocurrency or plan to invest in it. The number represents a 7% increase in the number of people willing to invest in cryptocurrency based on the results of a previous survey conducted in March 2020.
The proportion of those who actually invested in cryptocurrencies increased from 3% to about 9.5% between March 2020 and April 2021. The President of the Financial Services Board, Richard Kleppin, explained the results of the survey by saying:Research shows that since early 2020, New Zealand has followed the global trend towards investing in stocks as well as more speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies.. “
Klipin also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased technology adoption. However, in addition to this, the survey found that growing cyber insecurity concerns the majority (80%) of kiwis.
