5 years after FASEA’s establishment adviser numbers stabilise

Nearly five years after the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority regime acted as the catalyst for more than 40% of financial advisers exiting the profession, the latest Financial Adviser Register (FAR) data suggests the sector has stabilised.

The latest analysis from WealthData reveals no financial adviser exits but plenty of churn between licensees – a pattern similar to that which existed before the FASEA regime and the financial adviser exam were put in place.

Key Adviser Movements This Week:

• Net Change of advisers (-13)
• Net Change of +41 for 2023 YTD
• 20 Licensee Owners had net gains for 25 advisers
• 26 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-37) advisers
• Zero new licensees and zero ceased
• 1 Provisional Adviser commenced and zero ceased
• Number of advisers active this week (appointed / resigned) 72

WealthData principal, Colin Williams summarised this week’s FAR data by pointing out that, for the first week in a long while, and possibly several years no new licensees commenced and none closed.

“This week we saw 72 advisers joining / leaving licensees and the year to date growth is still positive at plus 41 advisers,” he said.

“All the recent data is clearly indicating that the adviser market has stabilised for the first time in many years. We may have to go back to pre 2016, the year that allowed accountants to commence providing limited SMSF advice on a restricted AFSL, which saw a flood of new ‘advisers’ come onto the ASIC FAR.

Growth This Week

• A relatively new licensee , Peninsula Wealth secured 3 advisers from the AMP Group, 2 from AMP Financial Planning and 1 from Hillross
• Sequoia had a busy week, up net 2 after hiring 4 advisers into Interprac and losing 2. Of the 4 new advisers, 3 moved away from Consultum (Insignia). Sequoia also moved a couple advisers across their own licensees, from Libertas to Interprac
• Paradigm Group (Licensee owner Patrick Nalty) gained 2 advisers from Avanti Group (Note: 1 still showing as current at Avanti)
• MWL Group picked up 2 advisers, 1 from Lifespan and the other from Associated Concepts
• 16 licensee owners up net 1 including Sambe Investments , Shaw and Partners, ASVW Holdings and Morgans Group who hired the lone Provisional Adviser for the week.

Losses This Week

• Insignia was down by (-5), after losing (-6) last week. This week they lost 7 advisers and gained 2. The two gains came from AMP Goup and Centrepoint
• Centrepoint Group down (-4), of the 4 advisers only 1 is showing as current
• AMP Group down (-3), only 1 of the 3 showing as current
• Lifesherpa down (-3), we expect all three to reappear soon under a new licensee
• 22 licensee owners down by (-1) each including Diverger, Industry Super Holdings, Viridian and WT Financial Group.