Low number of advisers moving to new licensees after resigning

The continued decrease in adviser numbers saw this week a net loss of 37, driving down the overall numbers to 18,698, according to Wealth Data.

Wealth Data analysed adviser number changes on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Financial Adviser register (FAR).

This week losses were driven by IOOF, which was down by five advisers, as well as AMP Group, BMF Asset Management (which has now zero advisers) and Diverger Group (previously known as Easton Investments) which lost four advisers each.

Following this, CBA and Politis were both down by three advisers while seven licensees owners were down two advisers. This included Mortgage Choice (Finchoice), which would eventually run down to zero as the licensee would close. As of this week, Finchoice had 23 advisers.

On top of that, 21 licensee owners lost one adviser each.

Additionally, Wealth Data’s director Colin Williams noted that the week saw 81 ‘resignations’ of those who resigned, while only 21 switched in the week.

“Some may switch over time, but this week’s ratio was very high as demonstrated in the low net growth numbers for licensees,” he said.

This week also saw three new licensees commenced, with one owned by AMP Group, AWM Services trading as AMP Direct, with advisers still operating under other AMP Licensees, which Wealth Data said would worth watching in the coming months.

Wealth Data noted Picture Wealth Group “split out” a new licensee – Picture Wealth Advisory – from co-owned NEO Financial solutions.

At the same time, five licensees effectively closed this week with zero advisers.

SMSF Adviser Network still remained the largest individual licensee at 640, with AMP Financial Planning sitting at 628 and was followed by Morgans with 474 advisers as per ASIC’s FAR.

This week’s least growth by licensee owners

Source: Wealth Data