AMP to launch first walk-in financial planning centre

AMP is launching a pilot walk-in retail financial planning centre in Parramatta.

AMP Financial Planning managing director Michael Guggenheimer said it was the result of the group’s goal to provide more advice to more Australians.

“There are a lot of people who do not seek advice, and we think there is an opportunity as one of the large licensees to try and create different pathways for consumers to access that advice,” he said.

The centre will open next week and is designed to house up to 20 self-employed financial planners. Guggenheimer said the street-front aspect of the centre meant it would be highly visible and its planners would be able to leverage off a strong brand.

“It will give the opportunity from a consumer’s perspective to be able to access a variety of their advice needs all in one place,” he said.

Guggenheimer added that this model would also present an attractive value proposition for financial planner start-ups.

“One of the challenges for a self-employed person is not just doing what they need to do to generate their revenue, but it’s also thinking about all the different aspects of running a business,” said Guggenheimer. “So one of the benefits we believe of having our financial planning centre is that we will provide all the infrastructure and on-site support to allow financial planners to get on with what they do best, which is to provide financial planning advice to their clients.”

He added that the model also provided a good career path for planners coming through the Horizons Financial Planning Academy program.

The centre has been designed to cater for customers with simple as well as complex financial planning needs. AMP Financial Planning director of advice solutions Steve Helmich said AMP was considering an indicative price range for simple advice that all the planners would follow. However, he conceded that complex issues would be a bit more difficult to price.

In response to possible negativity from some quarters of the financial planning community, Guggenheimer said: “This is a complementary strategy, not a competing one”.

He said while some practices had the scale to deal with the challenges the industry was currently confronting, others might be attracted by the support that the financial planning centre structure could offer them.

“I think there are others who are also thinking about this type of initiative as well,” he added. “I don’t think there will be too many negatives about this type of setup. We need to be mindful that it doesn’t matter what structure we’re talking about — the financial planner has certain obligations, and there’s no absolving or avoiding those obligations.”