Some financial planning bodies will struggle to survive in the financial planning regime evolving out of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee entailing the adviser register and the requirement for planners to be members of an appropriate professional association.
That is the assessment of the immediate past chairman of the Financial Planning Association (FPA), Matthew Rowe who has used a column in the upcoming edition of Money Management to suggest that some the existing planning organisations will struggle for relevance and that some might be forced into mergers to survive.
Among the organisations he has suggested will be under pressure are the Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners (AIOFP), the Independent Financial Advisers Association (IFAA), the Boutique Financial Planning Principals Group (BFPPG) and even the Financial Services Council (FSC).
As well, he suggests that the Self-Managed Super Professionals Association (SPAA) will need to prove that Self Managed Superannuation Fund advice represents a profession and is not simply a sub-set of both financial planning and accounting.
"FINSIA has lost money every year since selling their education business in 2007. In 2013 it reported a loss of almost $3 million," he wrote. "Given it has a very small footprint in financial planning and is predominately bankers and financial markets focussed it is hard to see how it can reinvent itself as a professional association for financial planners and deliver an operating surplus by 2017."
Rowe said that while he recognised there was significant overlap in the accounting and financial planning space, he believed most financial planners would likely seek membership of a dedicated financial planning association that recognises planning's unique requirements as a standalone profession.
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