INGhas unveiled further plans to internally restructure its dealer group operations, withTandem Financial Adviceto be positioned as a boutique planning group andRetireInvestadvisers to receive increased support in the management of their businesses.
ING head of advice Tony Hartley says Tandem will be differentiated in the market as a boutique collection of elite adviser firms.
Tandem general manager Andrew Doquile says it will not concentrate on its adviser numbers but will hold a maximum of 40 advisory firms, to be run by two to three planners and a number of paraplanners.
These firms will be established businesses and about 10 start up firms, which have all agreed to work on a fee for service model, reinvest in their own infrastructure and generate $500,000 in gross brokerage per annum.
“We haven’t closed adviser licences until this year and advisers not meeting the criteria for Tandem will be asked to improve or transition to RetireInvest or Millenium 3,” Doquile says.
RetireInvest general manager George Haramis says the changes to RetireInvest will not affect adviser numbers or the type of advice on offer but will target the way advisers conduct themselves as franchised business operators.
As a result of this push, ING’s practice development managers will take on a greater role working with advisers and the group will move some shared back-office services back into the dealer groups after deciding it was not receiving the cost benefits from a single scaled model.
For RetireInvest this will include marketing, compliance and training moving to the group’s own back-office, while a separate franchising arm would also be created in the group to deal with business development needs.
Money Managementrevealed last week that the moves would result in 30 staff leaving the dealer groups, but Hartley says many of the positions are filled on a temporary basis and would no longer be required under the new structure.
Hartley says the positions would be closed down over 12 months but the group was looking at redeploying staff in other areas of the group.
