Disciplinary actions taken against advisers low despite noise
Despite negative publicity the financial planning industry has dealt with since the fallout from the Royal Commission, the corporate regulator has only taken disciplinary action against 26 ‘current’ advisers and 177 ‘ceased’ advisers since 1993, according to Wealth Data.
Wealth Data said given the noise in mainstream media over advisers the number that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) had taken action against was “quite low”.
Interestingly, the majority of disciplinary actions began in 2015, with the peak occurring between 2017 and 2019.
Number of disciplinary actions against advisers by ASIC
Source: Wealth Data
Wealth Data’s weekly analysis of the ASIC’s Financial Adviser Register (FAR) and adviser movements showed a further drop in actual adviser numbers to 19,075 while the number of adviser roles jumped by 14 to 19,360.
Williams stressed that the main reason for this week’s variance between adviser roles and actual advisers came down to Macquarie Bank which appointed five existing Macquarie Equities advisers and now all five advisers would have two roles at Macquarie Group.
At the same time, 39 licensee owners posted net gains for 51 roles while 26 licensee owners reported net losses for 37 roles.
This week also saw the appointment of eight provisional advisers and all were appointed at different licensees.
Following that, Easton Group had a net growth of five adviser roles driven by GPS gaining net three advisers and another two left Charter to join Easton.
Also, a new licensee commenced with three advisers who all came from Insight Investment Services, and Capstone also saw a net growth of three advisers.
Additionally, there was a long tail of growth this week with 35 licensee owners gaining net one adviser each.
Looking at the adviser movements year-to-date across groups with over 50 adviser roles, IOOF manged to extend its lead over AMP Group with 1,439 roles versus 1,326, respectively.
Also, AMP Financial Planning remained the largest licensee with 674 just ahead of SMSF Advisers Network who had over recent weeks a steady number at 669.
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