Ellana Brand, Research Fellow at Griffith Business School

I’ve been studying economics and financial markets for the past decade, the last 6 years of which were at the Reserve Bank of Australia trying to understand developments in financial markets and think about where the economy might be heading.

In that time, I’ve come to appreciate how financial decisions and market developments can have a large impact on clients’ financial goals.

That, and a desire to help people, are key reasons why I applied for the new role of Research Fellow in financial advice, created by Griffith University and AMP.

This is a fantastic opportunity to undertake research around financial planning, which can be used to inform debate and policy and help raise the quality of financial advice across the industry.

I believe that enabling more Australians to access high quality financial advice has the potential to make a dramatic difference in the lives of individuals and families and Australia’s economic growth.

I believe that good advice can not only help people improve their standard of living and reach their goals more quickly, but also how it can give greater peace of mind and make people feel more in control of their finances. Measuring that impact will be one focus of my research.

I also want to try to improve advice by bringing new insights into the factors that advisers have to consider when they formulate their advice for a client, such as financial market conditions and trends, and different financial products.

Improving financial literacy is also a keen interest of mine. Not only does financial literacy help people make better financial decisions, I suspect it will also make them more comfortable about taking financial advice, by reducing the information asymmetry between the client and the adviser.