Client referrals and pension transfers were seen as the biggest opportunity areas by financial advisers in 2019, according to a survey by fintech Intelliflo.

For 2020 recruiting new staff has replaced pension transfers as the second most popular opportunity for companies, with pension transfers slipping to third place.

Existing clients recommending new clients and pension transfers were the top two business opportunities of 2019 for advisers, according to a survey of 360 users of Intelliflo's Intelligent Office conducted during December.

This year pension transfers are expected to be slightly less important but more planners see recruiting new staff as a priority, according to the poll.

In terms of challenges, regulation and cyber security were listed as the top two in 2019, with regulation and Brexit top for 2020 however regulation and Brexit were also listed as opportunities by many too.

Intelliflo’s web-based practice management software, Intelligent Office, is used by 2,550 financial advisory firms and over 25,500 users

Details of key opportunities and challenges listed by advisers in 2019 and predicted for 2020 are:

Source: Intelliflo 

Source: Intelliflo

Nick Eatock, chief executive at Intelliflo, said: "It's no surprise that regulation tops the list of challenges but it's interesting to see it ranks highly as an opportunity too.

“Regulation such as PROD (The Product Intervention and Product Governance Sourcebook) is one regulation that many advisers are still grappling with but, when done well, it can provide huge benefits for clients and advice businesses.

"It's also interesting that staff recruitment remains an issue. When we carried out a similar survey last year, recruitment was third in the list of challenges for 2018 and this latest survey seems to indicate that was the case and also that recruitment continues to be a challenge for the year ahead.”