This week’s analysis of the ASIC Financial Adviser Register (FAR), shows a reduction of (-35) Adviser Roles from 20,839 to 20,804. The number of actual Advisers also dropped by (-35) from 20,499 to 20,464. For more information regarding the variance between Adviser Roles and actual Advisers see Dashboard 17.

For the week, 48 Adviser roles were appointed and only one was a ‘new’ Provisional Adviser. 83 Adviser roles ceased to give the net total of (-35) roles.

Gains For The Week
28 licensees made net Adviser role gains for the week. Sayers Wealth appointed 4 Advisers,. The Advisers are all experienced and it appears they have been re-appointed to the FAR to provide personal advice (TBC).

RI Advice made a gain of 4 Advisers by taking Oakmont Financial Group away from Financial Services Partners (FSP). Oreana continue their growth in 2021 after a strong 2020, with a net gain of 3 Advisers as Willow Financial moved across from GWM.

Only 2 new licensees commenced this week for 2 Adviser roles.

Losses For The Week
44 licensees had net Adviser losses for the week. Pitcher Partners SA opting to remove 5 Advisers from the FAR. GWM lost another 4 Advisers and 6 licensees lost 3 Advisers roles each including Akambo, Bridges and Synchron.

Four licensees effectively closed for a total of (-5) Adviser roles. All associated with practices tied to accountants.

Points To Note
This week saw AMP Financial Planning dip below 800 Advisers, now standing at 799.

Dashboard 4 - Since August 31, 2020, the announcement of the IOOF purchase of MLC, the combined IOOF and MLC groups have lost a total 279 Adviser Roles (IOOF 149 and MLC 130), AMP Group are down 1 less at 278.

Quietly over the last couple of weeks, Easton Group have become the 4th largest group moving up from fifth. Easton have a total of 644 Adviser roles.

Dashboard 2 - Growth calendar YTD, for licensee ‘owners’ (with more than 50 Adviser roles), Count lead the way with 9 followed by Oreana with 8 and Centrepoint with 7.

Taking a look at dashboard 4 and adjusting start date to 01/01/2021, it can be seen that it is pretty hard even for the front runners to grow. Count have appointed 21 roles and lost 12 for their net gain of 9 roles. Similar story at Centrepoint who have appointed 20 roles and lost 13 for a net gain of 7. Oreana’s path appears to have been a little easier, appointing 9 roles and losing 1 for their net gain of 8.

New Dashboard - Membership of Associations - Dashboard 18
We have added a new Dashboard to provide an indication to the membership rates of different associations for current Adviser roles. Important to note that the accuracy of this information is reliant on what has been submitted to the FAR by licensees.

The rates indicate that the Financial Planning Association (FPA) is easily the largest association. However, some licensees clearly favour alternate associations.