Number of Advisers decreased by (-13) from 15,863 to 15,850

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Key Adviser Movements This Week:

• Net Change of advisers (-13)

• Net Change of +41 for 2023 YTD

• 20 Licensee Owners had net gains for 25 advisers

• 26 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-37) advisers

• Zero new licensees and zero ceased

• 1 Provisional Adviser commenced and zero ceased

• Number of advisers active this week (appointed / resigned) 72

Summary
The first week in a very long while - possibly several years that no new licensees commenced and none closed. This week we saw 72 advisers joining / leaving licensees and the year to date growth is still positive at plus 41 advisers.

All the recent data is clearly indicating that the adviser market has stabilised for the first time in many years. We may have to go back to pre 2016, the year that allowed accountants to commence providing limited SMSF advice on a restricted AFSL, which saw a flood of new ‘advisers’ come onto the ASIC FAR.

Growth This Week

• A relatively new licensee Peninsula Wealth, secured 3 advisers from the AMP Group, 2 from AMP Financial Planning and 1 from Hillross

• Sequoia had a busy week, up net 2 after hiring 4 advisers into Interprac and losing 2. Of the 4 new advisers, 3 moved away from Consultum (Insignia). Sequoia also moved a couple advisers across their own licensees, from Libertas to Interprac

• Paradigm Group (Licensee owner Patrick Nalty) gained 2 advisers from Avanti Group (Note: 1 still showing as current at Avanti)

• MWL Group picked up 2 advisers, 1 from Lifespan and the other from Associated Concepts

• 16 licensee owners up net 1 including Sambe Investments, Shaw and Partners, ASVW Holdings and Morgans Group who hired the lone Provisional Adviser for the week.

Losses This Week

• Insignia was down by (-5), after losing (-6) last week. This week they lost 7 advisers and gained 2. The two gains came from AMP Goup and Centrepoint

• Centrepoint Group down (-4), of the 4 advisers only 1 is showing as current

• AMP Group down (-3), only 1 of the 3 showing as current

• Lifesherpa down (-3), we expect all three to reappear soon under a new licensee

• 22 licensee owners down by (-1) each including Diverger, Industry Super Holdings, Viridian and WT Financial Group.

40,000 Reasons A Month To Update Qualifications On The FAR
If you read our blogs along with most financial planning media sites, you would know that our updates get a pretty good run in the media and often attract quite a few comments. Whenever we run something on adviser qualifications, a typical comment is ‘Nobody is interested and don’t bother to check adviser qualifications’ or words to that effect.

I checked in with ASIC who run the ‘Moneysmart’ website which includes the ‘Financial Adviser Register - Check a financial adviser’ search page. I asked as to how many views this page gets and the answer was a whopping 40,000 views per month.

That’s an incredible number of views and highlights that checking out an adviser through a government funded website is very important to a lot of people. We didn’t get a breakdown of the viewers. However, if you consider the number of people who have lost their adviser and the number of people who are approaching / considering retirement, these two factors alone would drive a lot of people to seek more information.

There are also the places that no longer offer advice. I was at a major bank this week sorting out a few accounts. I asked them who they direct clients to that may need financial advice, and the bank manager pointed me to the Moneysmart website!

There is a potential issue with the Moneysmart website in the way it highlights qualifications. Advisers have their qualifications listed and if they have an approved qualification, it is shown as ‘Approved Qualification’. It would be understandable for a user of the website, to value an ‘approved qualification’ higher than any other qualification, even though an adviser can be very well qualified without having an approved qualification. Approved qualifications initially appeared as FASEA approved qualifications, i.e. been assessed and approved by FASEA.

There is no clarification (that I could find) on the Moneysmart website to the difference between an approved qualification and any other qualification. On the page ‘Choosing a financial adviser’, the first question they suggest that a person should ask an adviser is about their qualifications.

The table below highlights that 10,097 advisers or 64% have a degree of some description under ‘General Qualifications and Training’. However, only 38.2% of advisers have an entry of any description under ‘Approved Qualifications’. Note: 100% of advisers do have an entry under general qualifications and training.

*For those who may track Provisional Advisers and see variance in the numbers, there are a small number who have an earlier start date in advice and have since rejoined as a Provisional Adviser.

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