Which business model garners the greatest adviser loyalty?

While the number of advisers switching tends to tick up at the end of the year, Padua Wealth Data has revealed that advisers under an institutional or salaried business model has the lowest rate of switching.

According to the latest industry analysis, advisers under this model have an been appointed to a different licensee an average of 2.04 times, suggesting that advisers under this model may be more loyal to their firm.

However, Padua Wealth Data founder Colin Williams explained that this may be due in part to the lesser number of options available for advisers to switch licensees within this market segment.

Larger licensees with more than 150 advisers ranked next with advisers having an average of 2.61 appointments, despite many larger licensees in the advice network having seen greater losses in recent years, suggesting that the remaining advisers “stayed loyal, helping to create a more stable situation”.

Boutique licensees with fewer than 20 advisers followed this with its advisers coming in with an average score of 2.83, followed by mid-size licensees with 20-150 advisers (3.16) and super funds (3.19).

With super funds reporting the highest switch rate, Williams suggested this may be a result of hiring largely experienced advisers as opposed to new entrants.

Notably, Willaims found that there are currently two advisers who have been appointed some 16 times and a further 27 advisers who have been appointed more than 10 times each.

Despite each week seeing steady rate of around 60 advisers active in appointments and resignations, Williams said that during busy periods, such as the end of the fiscal and calendar year, “that number can be in the hundreds”, suggesting there could be heightened rates of adviser shifting in the coming weeks.

Looking at the weekly movements, the week ending 13 November saw a net gain of nine advisers, bringing the total up to 15,467 as the profession attempts to crawl its way back above 15,500 – a point it hasn’t seen since the week ending 19 June, which was followed by weeks of steady outflows.

With less than seven weeks left of 2025, there is currently a net loss of just six for the calendar year-to-date signalling a potential for the profession to end the year in the green depending on the December losses as advisers exit ahead of the 1 January education deadline.

The Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) has predicted the profession could see around 1,000 advisers drop off the Financial Adviser Register (FAR), obliterating any ground gained.

In licensee movements this week, Partners Wealth Group was the only AFSL to see a net gain of two advisers as it snatched up two of the 15 new entrants joining the profession this week.

A long tail of 27 licensees saw a net gain of one adviser each, including Morgans Group, Lifespan and Picture Wealth, as well as this week’s two newly commenced licensees.

Meanwhile, Advice Exchange Solutions and Hunter Green were both down by net two, of which three are yet to be reappointed and one moved to Wealthyer Advice Assurance.

This week also saw three single-adviser licensees cease operations, and a tail of 16 licensees saw a net loss of one adviser each including Entireti and Togethr Trustees.