By George Liondis
Up to160 of ING’s financial advisers remain uncertain about their future within the Dutch giant after it completed the restructure of its financial planning businesses with the launch of a new dealer group, Tandem Financial Advice.
ING publicly unveiled Tandem last week as part of a restructure that resulted in three of the group’s other financial planning businesses — Lynx Financial Services, Partnership Planning and AustAdvisers — disappearing.
The majority of the 260 advisers who made up the three disbanded groups have been invited to join either Tandem, or ING’s other dealerships, RetireInvest and Millenium 3.
However, the head of ING Advice, Mike Goodall, says only 100 planners have so far accepted the offer and joined Tandem, including all 23 proper authority holders from AustAdvisers.
The remainder will have four months to decide whether they will join Tandem, Millenium 3 or RetireInvest, or choose to leave the ING group altogether.
Under the reorganised dealer group structure, Tandem will be positioned as ING’s premium dealership targeting high-end clients, while RetireInvest will continue to target the retiree market and Millenium 3 will target those clients with a wealth accumulation focus.
It is understood advisers from the Lynx group who are planning to stay with ING are split into two camps — those that will join Tandem and those that will join Millenium 3.
The intentions of advisers from Partnership Planning are less clear. However, there is some deep seated resentment at the group over the changes, with many planners having to give up the Partnership Planning name after only adopting it last year when the group changed its moniker from Australian Investment Services (AIS).
But the biggest hurdle for many planners to stay within the ING group could be a new remuneration structure, which will see ING pay advisers more generous commissions but also charge them a flat monthly fee.
The structure is largely seen as making it unviable for many smaller, less productive planning offices to continue with the group.
ING also confirmed last week that Andrew Doquile, the former national sales and marketing manager for WealthPoint, had been hired to head up Tandem.
