How many advisers support associations?
Under 40% of all adviser roles listed on the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC’s) Financial Adviser Register (FAR), or 7,716, are members of the industry’s largest professional body, the Financial Planning Association (FPA).
Wealth Data found by comparison, the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) only had membership from 2,292 roles, or 11.88% of all adviser roles listed by ASIC.
In terms of peer groups, the data found that superannuation fund advisers (65%) were the most loyal to the FPA while across the financial planning groups 49% of all adviser roles were associated with the FPA, with a large number of licensees with over 50% membership.
On the other hand, the AFA had only 18% of all financial planning peer group roles but 6% or less across other groups.
Wealth Data’s director, Colin Williams, stressed that not all members of associations were current advisers.
“We have also relied upon the data in the ASIC FAR to collate the numbers and is only as accurate as what has been provided to ASIC via the licensees. The numbers do indicate that there is a diverse range of financial advisers who feel their needs are best served by one association over another,” he said.
Source: Wealth Data
As far as the adviser movements concerned, this week saw a further jump in net loss of experienced advisers to 37, driving down the overall number of advisers to new low and stopping at 19,003, just shy of breaking the new record of 19,000.
In May, Money Management reported that the number of advisers fell to below 20,000 for the first time.
Losses this week were driven by AMP Group which lost eight roles, including three at ipac, which according to Wealth Data now had 63 advisers, a fall from 108 on 1 January, 2020.
IOOF and Easton Group both lost five roles and there were four losses at Millennium 3.
Additionally, three licensees were effectively closed, translating into the loss of three advisers.
“This week we did see a big gap in the number of advisers that ‘switched’ in the week,” Williams added.
“Of the 71 advisers that ‘resigned’ only nine switched in the week to new licensees. This leaves 62 advisers without a role and this could be a timing issue with registering resignations and appointments at licensees via ASIC, but it is a much larger gap than what we would normally see.
“Of the 62 advisers without a current role, 25 are known to have passed the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) exam.”
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