This article draws on a Momentum Connect panel discussion and material supplied by Momentum Group.
South Africa’s financial advisers face a double shift in 2026. The COFI Bill is nearing full implementation and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority has put artificial intelligence at the top of its monitoring radar. Speaking on Momentum Connect, Momentum Group CEO Jeanette Marais, Financial Planning Institute CEO Lelané Bezuidenhout and Moneyweb editor Ryk van Niekerk argued that technology is a partner, not a threat, and that advisers who use AI will outlast those who do not.
What the COFI Bill changes
The Conduct of Financial Institutions (COFI) Bill is the largest consolidation of financial regulation in South African history. It merges fragmented laws into a single framework that will touch every financial adviser with no exceptions. The move is away from a rules-based, tick-box compliance culture toward an outcomes-based model built on activity-based licensing.
“The most important part of the COFI Bill is that it focuses directly on outcomes for clients,” Marais said. Firms will have to prove they are delivering fair outcomes rather than treating compliance as paperwork. There is no need to panic, she added. The bill builds on the existing treating customers fairly principle and proportionality keeps requirements scaled to the size and nature of each practice.
Advisers do not have to wait
Key instruments are already active. The FSCA and the Prudential Authority have implemented interim conduct standards that apply to all firms regardless of size. On AI, advisers must weigh the POPIA and GDPR risks of feeding client information into open-source platforms. Practices need clear guardrails setting out which tools are permitted so sensitive client data is never exposed to public databases.
The Dr Google effect reaches financial planning
Generative tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot are widening access to financial information. The result mirrors what medicine has seen for years. Clients arrive with a self-generated plan and a fixed idea of what they want. AI carries one psychological advantage advisers struggle to match. It does not judge.
“Machines don’t have empathy, but they are highly informative and entirely uncritical,” Marais said. Advisers have to recognise the guilt and judgement clients attach to money and adjust to it.
Why human advice still matters
AI agents operate with no emotion, no proportionality and no legal accountability in a trust-based industry. If a self-generated plan goes wrong, South Africa’s unsettled AI policy leaves a real liability gap. A consumer can only judge an AI plan if they already hold a sound baseline to measure it against, which is why adviser intelligence has to come before artificial intelligence.
From planner to coach
The panel framed automation as an efficiency multiplier rather than a threat. Routine work like report writing and drafting records of advice can be handed to secure, ring-fenced tools, freeing advisers to do the work machines cannot.
“You don’t have to sit and spend days on your record of advice. AI can generate all of that for you,” Marais said. “Use those tools to save yourself time so that you have the freedom to be a true financial coach to your client.”
The role shifts from plan-writer to execution-focused coach, letting one tech-enabled adviser serve a far larger client base. Clients in an uncertain world want more than returns, Marais said. They want reassurance, perspective and a human partner who can look them in the eye. The panel’s conclusion was blunt. AI will not replace financial advisers, but advisers who use AI will replace those who do not.
Source: Momentum Connect panel discussion, material supplied by Momentum Group.
