Adviser exits due to banks restructuring: FASEA

While regulation has been one of the factors driving financial advisers to leave the industry, it is the restructuring across major banks and advice players that has left a large number of advisers leaving the industry, according to Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA).

As part of the Financial Planning Association (FPA) congress, FASEA chief executive, Stephen Glenfield, spoke at a roundtable discussion and said there was no “magic number” of how many advisers were needed in the industry.

“FASEA is a body that was there to put a series of legislative instruments and standards in place. The reduction you’re seeing in adviser numbers are driven by any number of factors, one of which is regulation but if you think about the restructuring across the major banks and advice players there has been an enormous shift in the advice numbers which has left a large number of people leaving the market because the jobs aren’t there,” he said.

“The key to the future is that there needs to be demand for advice because demand will drive more business and bring more new entrants to the field.”

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When asked if losing advisers that had years of experience was a concern, Glenfield said FASEA’s role was to put in place a framework and structure that was fair and would let advisers meet the new standards if they wished to.

“I can’t dictate to people whether they should pursue education, and I fully understand that there will be advisers that decide they don’t want to do it. My role is to present a feasible path for those who want to do it,” he said.

He noted that if he had hindsight on the criticism the authority has faced so far and whether he would have taken up the role knowing these, he would have.

“The criticism around FASEA was to do with communication and if we had more time, when I joined, we could have better communicated the message of what we were doing,” he said.

“If you look at the explanatory memorandum it talked about the FSI, talks about the PJC enquiry and the need for change.

“We took for granted that people would have accepted the change was needed. One element of pushback is that there has been a degree of non-acceptance. That change element that people are having trouble with.”