Dealer group acknowledges advisers emotionally battered

Financial Planning Services Australia (FPSA) advisers have been emotionally "battered" by the ongoing market downturn, chief executive Mark Ryan has acknowledged.

“The major issue for us now is to ensure the mental health of our advisers, a lot of whom have been battered severely,” Ryan said.

“Like advisers everywhere, they have taken this market downturn and the reduction in their client capital personally.

“They’re really feeling the pain that their clients are suffering, while at the same time having to deal with the pain of their own reduced income."

Ryan’s comments follow new research by Wealth Insights, published in Money Management last week, which reveals the human cost of the collapse in markets and investment returns.

The research revealed that while clients rarely blamed their advisers, those advisers were nonetheless bereft at not having provided better advice.

Ironically, the downturn across industry has not prevented the continuing strong growth of FPSA, a fully-owned subsidiary of Netwealth since December last year.

The dealer group has a “significant pipeline of prospective advice firms and dealer groups with which it is involved in merger discussions", he said.

It now comprises 29 representative advice firms nationally (42 advisers), an increase of five firms since Ryan joined as chief executive last August.