Remediation program drives planner demand
Remediation programs and a push into regional areas by financial planning firms and major banks are driving up salaries, a recruitment firm revealed.
Data form the Robert Walters Salary Survey revealed salaries across the financial sector increased by 4.7 per cent in 2015, with planning and compliance roles key drivers for the rise in salaries.
Robert Walters associate director, Henry Smith, said the growth in banks' risk and compliance structures had seen financial planners earn salary increases of 10 to 20 per cent.
"Due to some fairly significant global fines of financial institutions, as well as tightening of regulations here locally, we're seeing an increase in demand for risk compliance specialists," he said.
"That has been going on for the last 18 months to two years, but particularly in the back end of last year we saw some hot pockets of that.
"The area of financial planning compliance with some large-scale remediation programs has led to an increase of 10 to 20 per cent and in some cases 30 to 40 per cent on salaries with that area."
The survey noted that "both South Australia and Queensland will see strong demand for financial planners, and top interstate talent can expect sign-on bonuses and relocation costs as part of their package to entice them to move".
"More generally, we expect a shift from predominantly contract-focused demand to a more even split across temporary and permanent recruitment as the market strengthens," the firm said.
"Increasing regulatory requirement will continue to impact banks in Victoria and NSW in 2016."
AUTHOR
Nicholas O'Donoghue
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