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Analysis of the ASIC Financial Adviser Register (FAR), highlights a loss of (-9) Adviser Roles. The number of roles moving down from 20,975 to 20,966. The number of individual Advisers reduced by (-10) down from 20,639 to 20,629. (See Dashboard 12 which highlights variance between roles and actual advisers).

26 licensees improved their net number of Adviser Roles. Zodiac Securities (trading as iInvest Securities), as a result of ‘future planning’ decided to re-appoint 4 advisers that it had previously ‘resigned’ during 2020. Oreana Financial Services continue to grow, adding three Advisers via ‘Kings Park Securities’ a practice previously aligned with Executive Wealth Management Financial Services, a small licensee owned by IOOF.

Three new licensees were established accounting for 5 Advisers. HLB Man Judd (NSW) with 2 Advisers moving from Lonsdale, Multiforte Group, also 2 advisers and they switched from Financial Master Plan and Templeton (Aust) Financial Services, 1 Adviser moving form Libertas Financial Planning.

This week also saw one additional Provisional Adviser moving the total to 59.

In total 27 licensees lost net Adviser Roles. It may be a concerning week for IOOF with Bridges and Lonsdale both losing (-4) Adviser Roles, and as mentioned earlier, Executive Wealth Management lost (-3) roles to Oreana. GWM Adviser Services (MLC) lost (-5) roles and as we know, GWM is part of MLC that is being purchased by IOOF.

Since Aug 31, 2020, the day of the IOOF / MLC deal announcement, IOOF has lost (-119) roles and MLC Group down by (-71), total of (-190 roles). By comparison AMP Group has lost (-243) roles. See Dashboard 4 for details.

Two small licensees effectively closed as they no longer have current Advisers, for a total loss of (-3) Advisers.

What is an Appointment?

As a result of the new FASEA requirements along with the methodology and terms used by ASIC, it can be a bit confusing to understand just exactly what determines an Appointment on the ASIC FAR.

Any ‘Appointment’ to a licensee is classed as an Appointment, irrespective if the Adviser is moving between licensees, or appointed as a ‘new’ Provisional Adviser.

Under the new FASEA arrangements, all ‘new’ Advisers to the profession will be classed as a Provisional Adviser; often referred to as an Adviser working through their Professional Year.

Provisional Advisers do not have a ‘Year’ for the Adviser Commenced date on the ASIC FAR. Once the Provisional Adviser completes all the necessary steps to be an Adviser, they simply change their role status on the ASIC FAR to an Adviser - Importantly, they will now have a Year noted for the Adviser Commenced date section in the ASIC FAR. Therefore, an Adviser on the ASIC FAR can have an Appointment date in 2020 but the year for Adviser Commenced can be in 2021.

To better understand the movement of new Advisers, we have 2 Dashboards, 11 A and 11 B. You will be able to see at a high level and by licensee the appointments made for Provisional Advisers and by Year the Advisers Commenced. Unfortunately, the numbers are very low and you will see the mad rush to become an Adviser in 2018 to avoid being a Provisional Adviser.

If you have any questions, please call or email - Contact Colin Here

Access all the dashboards via link below.