Financial Adviser Insights, Aug 24, 2023

Adviser Numbers This Week, Net Change of (-1) Moving Down From 15,713 To 15,712

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Key Adviser Movements This Week:

  • Net Change of advisers (-1)

  • Current number of advisers at 15,712

  • Net Change of (-87) for Calendar YTD

  • Net Change new Financial YTD +146

  • 25 Licensee Owners had net gains for 32 advisers

  • 26 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-33) advisers

  • 2 New licensees and 1 ceased

  • 7 New entrants

  • Number of advisers active this week, appointed / resigned: 68.

Growth This Week - Licensee Owners

  • Seven licensee owners were up by net 2 advisers each. This included a new licensee which has commenced. ceased and restarted in the last couple of months, I’m guessing some admin / process issues. Others up by 2 include Findex, Bluewater Financial Advisors who got both advisers from Spark Financial and AIA who got one adviser each from Aware Super and Mercers.

  • 18 licensee owners were up by one adviser each including; Shaw and Partners, Canaccord Group and Beryllium Advisers who continue their growth, now up by 9 advisers for the year.

Losses This Week - Licensee Owners

  • Insignia down by (-3) after losing 4 advisers and hiring a new entrant

  • AMP Group also down by (-3), who followed Insignia by losing 4 advisers and hiring a new entrant

  • 3 licensee owners down by (-2) each including, Fitzpatricks who have now lost 16 or down (-18%) for the calendar year. WT Financial Group hired 1 new entrant but lost 3 advisers

  • 21 licensee owners down by (-1) each including Count Group who are now down (-18) or (-5.5%) for the year, FSSSP (Aware Super) who are now down (-7) for the year or (-4.9%).

Ability To Provide TFAS?
New onto the FAR this week is a column indicating if an adviser can offer ‘Tax (Financial) Advice’. Not earth-shattering news, but be aware of it now included on the FAR and, by default, will appear at the Moneysmart website under an adviser search.

FAAA Hits The ASIC FAR
The FAAA which was recently formed (combining FPA and the AFA) has now submitted its records to ASIC, to update advisers’ Membership Details on the ASIC FAR. The submission format, agreed with ASIC and, in turn, avoided every licensee having to pay $36.00 per adviser for the update. The savings been in the region of some $280,000.

We ran the numbers today, it shows that FAAA have 7,851 current advisers as members.

Back in April earlier this year, we forecasted that the total potential would be 8,835, based on all advisers who had indicated on the FAR that they were members of the FPA or AFA. Since then, quite a few of those advisers have ceased and a few may well still be in the process of finalising their membership with the FAAA. For example, we found another 95 advisers who are still showing as members of the FPA/AFA.

The 95 advisers may well be finalising their memberships. However, licensees should be monitoring their advisers to ensure their details are up-to-date, as fines may apply. Secondly, it can be misleading to the public, which never fares well for anyone connected to financial advice.

We have been informed that there is a grace period that expires at the end of September, for anyone who has not finalised their renewal by then, their membership will lapse.


Is This The Best Of Times To Be A Financial Adviser?
We have updated our Superannuation Data using the latest update from APRA and, in parts, cross-referenced our adviser data and some population data from the ABS. Link to the post below. Some key points highlighted in the post includes:

  • The total value of Superannuation assets, divided by the number of current advisers, shows an average balance per adviser at $220 million. This is up from a low of $88 million back at the start of 2019

  • The number of opportunities by population has also grown. Back in 2019 there were 900 people in Australia per adviser, it has now grown to 1,706

  • A possible concern for some advisers is that SMSF growth has slowed. For the year, SMSF asset growth was lower than Retail funds and a fraction of the growth recorded by Industry funds

  • We also cover asset allocations, costs and transfer of assets to and from SMSFs. All the details in the blog - click link below…

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Colin Williams

Colin is the founder of Wealth Data. A career spanning 30 years in financial services, mostly in general manager positions and consulting roles with a focus on financial advice.

https://wealthdata.com.au/
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Financial Adviser Insights, Aug 31, 2023

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Super Funds Analysis (APRA) -Updated June 2023