Internal factors driving willingness to seek financial advice: The role of trust and anxiety

We construct and test a conceptual framework that extends the five-step financial help-seeking model (Grable and Joo, J Financ Couns Plann, 1999, 10, 14-25) by incorporating different trust dimensions and financial adviser anxiety to examine how internal factors influence willingness to seek financial advice. Using structural equation modeling and a sample of 1297 Australian adults, we find willingness is mostly driven by narrow-scope trust and, to a lesser extent, by future time perspective and an indirect effect of system trust (through narrow-scope trust). However, we do not find evidence to suggest that financial adviser anxiety is associated with financial advice-seeking willingness or narrow-scope trust. Our results suggest factors that policymakers can target to increase consumer advice-seeking willingness to help increase the uptake of financial advice when needed and available.