Wealth Data founder Colin Williams believes there is ‘no excuse’ for further financial adviser declines as the number of new entrants joining struggle to make up the shortfall.
Over the 2023–24 financial year, some 214 advisers left the advice industry. However, this was still a stronger result than FY22–23, which saw a net loss of 633 advisers.
Williams previously attributed the “severe” losses to the final FASEA exam for existing advisers in September 2022, resulting in a larger number being removed from the Financial Adviser Register (FAR).
Speaking with Money Management, the founder argues that there is “no excuse” for another period of high adviser losses due to the range of legislative improvements felt in the profession.
“Adviser numbers are heading in the wrong direction, albeit at a much slower rate than we did in the past. But there’s no excuse now for people to leave in many ways, I guess you could say, because before the excuse was the FASEA exam and all that. To some degree, that’s now been taken away and we’re at a so-called ‘new normal’,” Williams explained.
One of the key changes made to improve adviser numbers has been the experience pathway, which allows advisers with at least 10 years of experience between 2007 and 2021 to meet qualification standards without further education. To be eligible to access the pathway, an adviser should also have passed the financial adviser exam by 1 January 2022, or 1 October 2022 if they were eligible for the exam extension.
Moreover, the current pipeline of new advisers joining the profession is not sufficient enough to balance out the number of exits, Williams added. In total, there were 376 that entered for the first time in FY23–24 compared to the 975 advisers that resigned and ceased. This creates a net loss of 599 advisers, differing from the actual net loss of 214 due to advisers who have found a way to get back into advice.
“The number of new entrants is not matching the number of advisers who are ceasing and leaving. For every two leaving, there’s roughly one being hired.”
Throughout FY24, AMP Group added 28 current new entrants to its ranks, while Insignia Financial welcomed 15, Count and WT Financial Group appointed 12 respectively and both Centrepoint Alliance and Morgans hired 11 each.
| Licensee | FY24 new entrant appointments |
| AMP Group | 28 |
| Insignia Financial | 15 |
| Count | 12 |
| WT Financial Group | 12 |
| Centrepoint | 11 |
| Morgans | 11 |
Source: Wealth Data
Williams continued that the only reason the numbers are “not further in the red” has been from advisers returning to financial advice after a period away. However, this will only be a temporary solution for the industry, he said.
As mentioned above, some 385 of the adviser gains in FY24 were from advisers returning to the industry.
“Practices that want to hire somebody to keep the practice ticking over have two choices; they can either take on a new entrant which means doing a Professional Year and all that involves which is a very long, drawn-out process, or they can find someone who’s already qualified and pretty much ready to go from day one.
“I think many have opted to say ‘that’s the easier option’ as there are quite a few advisers out there who have got the experience. But I don’t think that can continue forever. There’s a fairly large pool out there who are ready to be re-employed but that won’t last forever as eventually they will find other jobs and won’t be in a position to return.”
Earlier this month, Anne Palmer, general manager of education at the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA), said the onus lately has been falling on smaller Australian financial services licensees (AFSLs) to recruit new advisers.
“That means that new entrants can no longer rely on big employers to run large graduate intake programs. That has left the obligation on smaller-sized advisory businesses to train up new advisers,” she argued.
Palmer said she believed that intake programs for new advisers across the board were not operating on the scale they used to be doing so.
“There are a number of reasons for this. For example, in the past, some of the largest recruiters of new advisers were the banks, and they have now exited financial advice. The size of licensees in general have also reduced. Therefore, even if they were taking on the same percentage of new advisers compared to their size as in the past, it doesn’t produce the same total number of advisers now,” she said.
As others have said – plenty of excuses for further falls.
How about decades of being continually beaten down by the government/media/public which just gradually crushes the spirit? How about being the honey pot that the finance world goes to for extra cash (ASIC Levy/CSLR/PI)? How about the continual status of the proverbial whipping boy when anything goes wrong?
Not to mention the atrocious level of paperwork/compliance that drags you down everyday – which is further compounded by ever present “changes” that are “coming” but never materialise and even when they do, Choice labels us all criminals and then the government waters it down or ignores us. It is literally financial planners vs everyone else – no one is in our corner.
Honestly, if I hadn’t committed so much of my time and money to getting into the industry over the past 12 years (to where it has only really started paying off in recent years), I’d just walk away.
Planners will be in short supply, with only 376 in FY23–24. In my experience, of this number, only around 20% to 30% will last as planners so we are a long way behind.
As usual there is no delineation in the article between risk specialist advisers and investment specialist advisers. This always makes it difficult to comment so I really wish journalists would make the distinction in their reports. It isn’t just MM but ‘most’ other publications. So, if we are talking about specialist risk advisers then, YES, we can expect many more large losses as we close in on 2026. I have previously posited that there won’t be any risk specialists left by 2026 – we shall see. Why would there be? Commissions, the only real way a pure risk adviser can get paid properly (fees do NOT work) have been cut over 50% within the last 10 years. Compliance burden has increased by at LEAST 50% (some may argue 100%) in that same period. Then you have politicians moving the goal posts at their whims and making promises that never happen (hello Steven). With such a stressful, movable feast that doesn’t pay enough to make a risk business viable why would an experienced adviser want to stay or why would a new risk adviser want to ‘risk’ it? Commissions would need to be 100/20 for the industry to have even a shadow of a chance to survive and attract old players back in. Without the experienced hands there is nobody in the field to properly train the neophytes. Hmmm, who am I trying to kid? . . . all and any ‘experienced’ advisers who have left have already sold their business and retired in disgust after the catastrophe in IP of 2021 – they can’t come back, let alone wish it. So we are left with a skeleton crew of risk specialists with some experience and newbies who really don’t understand the hot mess in which they are getting involved. What a disaster all ’round!
Is he serious, improvements from legislation change, all I see is more ASIC compliance and higher costs, this government ( especially Steven Jones ) have lied to us and are continuing to shaft financial advisers.
Adviser numbers are heading in the wrong direction, albeit at a much slower rate than we did in the past. But there’s no excuse now for people to leave in many ways
Odd thing to say, maybe we’ve had a gutful of the treatment from ASIC JONES ETC, in the “New Normal”
There’s definitely an excuse, it’s called Dec 2025. Many will choose not to do a degree, because they miss out on the ridiculously restricted 10-year experience pathway. If the sector stays above 14,000 by Jan 2026, it will be lucky.