Advisers who left independently-owned licensees in tougher financial times are expected flock back in the name of "unbiased" advice.
These are the views of Synchron director, Don Trapnell, who said the term vertical integration is simply a euphemism for "conflict of interest".
He said licensees who manufactured products and encouraged advisers to market them were conflicted.
"We encourage the regulator to look deeper into the vertical integration issue, particularly in view of the Best Interests Duty provisions of the Future of Financial Advice legislation."
In light of this, Trapnell said he expects many of the institutional advisers to rethink their move.
"This is because more discerning advisers want to provide advice that does not kowtow to an institution and more discerning clients want to know that the advice they receive is not biased towards the products manufactured by an institution which also owns the adviser's licensee," he said.
