Details to the data are available via the link below this post

Most licensees took a bit of a breather this week after the ‘catch up’ of reporting post holidays that we saw last week. The number of Adviser Roles and actual Advisers (see Dashboard 12 for variance) both reduced by (-26). Adviser Roles reduced from 20,955 to 20,929 and actual Advisers dropped from 20,616 to 20,590.

In total we saw 41 Advisers appointed to 35 licensees, 39 being Advisers who switched from another licensee and 2 being ‘new’ Provisional Advisers. 67 Advisers resigned from 33 licensees, leaving the net (-26) reduction in Advisers. As 2 Advisers were brand new, this means 28 additional advisers were listed as ‘Ceased’ (no longer practicing) on the ASIC Financial Adviser Register (FAR). This does not mean they have ceased completely, it may well mean that many are in the process of switching to a new licensee.

ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) dominated the Adviser movement with (-20) ‘Advisers’ changed to Ceased on the FAR register. It is important to note that the ANZ staff were predominately in support roles, e.g. paraplanning and they remain at ANZ. I expect to see many more support staff and other roles such as accountants who occasionally provide advice to be also switched to Ceased on the FAR as the year progresses. Maintaining the required training and skills to be classed as a Financial Adviser is becoming cost and risk prohibitive.

Gains For The Week
Four licensees with 2 net Adviser gains share top spot. This includes RI Advice who picked up both of their Advisers from Charter. Count got one Adviser from Godfrey Pembroke and the other being a ‘new’ Provisional Adviser. Cobalt Advisers also picked up 2 Advisers, both from Axies Pty Ltd. Rounding out the licensees that gained 2 Advisers was Maven Capital who got one from Medori Limited and one from The Advice Exchange.

There were 2 ‘new’ Provisional Advisers’, as mentioned earlier one at Count and the other at Finchoice. Total number of Provisional Advisers now stand at 63 (Dashboard 11 B)

One new licensee formed for one Adviser. Another licensee, Hoxton Capital came back to life, appointing one Adviser.

Losses For The Week
As mentioned earlier, ANZ dominates the losses with 20 Advisers. GWM (MLC) had another week of losses, this time with 6 and to date, none have been re-appointed elsewhere. Easton Wealth owned The SMSF Expert lost 3 Advisers. Four licensees, Affinia, Axies, Charter and Commonwealth Bank all lost 2 Advisers.

Two licensees went to zero Advisers for a total of 2 Advisers.

Key Trends
Adviser Losses have definitely slowed over recent months. From Jan 1, 2020 to today’s data, a net loss of (-2,950) has occurred. (-2,217) of the losses were in the first half of 2020 and the remaining (-733) losses are post July 1, 2020.

A slowing down of the losses is a good sign. It would be more encouraging to see losses turn into gains, but this is unlikely in the near term as FASEA Exams come due and major licensees continue to transform their Adviser teams.

All the details from above along with a whole lot more can be found on the Adviser Movement Dashboards via the below.