Average adviser experience levels steady despite exits
While cumulatively hundreds of years of experience exited the financial advice profession as more than 40% of advisers left the sector, there was no diminution in the average years of experience.
That is the bottom line of new analysis from WealthData which pointed to 27,982 advisers being on the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) at the start of the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) regime diminishing to just 15,690 today.
However, the average years of experience of the 13,933 advisers who exited was 15 years, and the average years of experience for those remaining today is 15.5 years.
Key Adviser Movements This Week:
- Net Change of advisers (-11)
- Current number of advisers at 15,690
- Net Change of (-109) for Calendar YTD
- Net Change Financial YTD +130
- 20 Licensee Owners had net gains for 27 advisers
- 28 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-39) advisers
- 4 New licensees and 3 ceased
- 9 New entrants.
- Number of advisers active this week, appointed / resigned: 84
Growth This Week – Licensee Owners
- AAN Wealth Management gained 3, after appointing 4 and 1 resigned. All 4 appointments came from different licensees
- 5 licensees owners had net gains of 2 each including:
- PSK Group, both advisers moving across from Charter owned by AMP
- Koda Capital with 2 new entrants
- FMD Financial and Findex both gaining 2 new entrants each
- A New licensee commenced with 2 advisers, both ex AMP Financial Planning
- A fairly short tail this week of 14 licensee owners up by net 1 each including the remaining three new licensees, WT Financial Group, Fortnum and Australian Advice Network.
Losses This Week – Licensee Owners
- FSSSP Financial (Aware Super) down by (-5), bringing YTD losses to (-20) or (-14.08%.). The Super Fund Based Advice model is showing a net loss of (-53) for the year, or (-7.03%).
- AMP Group, down (-3), losing 4 advisers and gaining 1
- Centrepoint also down (-3), as per AMP above, losing 4 and gaining 1 which was a new entrant
- Morgan Stanley lost 3 advisers, none to date appointed elsewhere.
- NTAA down by (-2)
- A tail of 23 down by (-1) each including Count Group who continue to shuffle advisers from Affinia to Count Financial, Diverger, Morgans and Viridian Group.
“…Lies, damn lies, and statistics…” [Mark Twain]
The average may be the same, but the breadth and depth of the pool shrinks, not to mention access and availability. It is a deflationary spiral which will likely take decades to overcome.
Of course, the politicians and bureaucrats will bear no responsibility nor feel any consequences of their deluded Utopian attempts to “Impose ideology on biology”, leaving behind smoking ruins, collapsed businesses, and ruined lives.
1] The entire approach to Financial Services and AR’s has been a mistake, going back to implementing the FSRA in 2003.
a) As long the entire approach replicates Australian politics, in its brutal, bludgeoning, lowbrow, unthinking, abusive, legalistic, “hierarchical” “Guilty until proven innocent” attitude, the industry will continue to decline, and Australian society will be the worse for it;
b) You cannot have the enormous demands, requirements, responsibilities, and costs placed on AR’s, yet treat them like ignoramuses, incompetents, reprobates, Call Centre Staff, and criminals as yet unprosecuted, but demand of them to be highly and broadly educated, aware, considerate, altruistically ethical, self sacrificing, forward thinking, innovative, taking the initiative, and perpetually energetic “professionals”.
You have to accord them the respect due, motivate them to higher standards, help them aspire to the ideal, and earn accordingly – not bludgeon them into submission with threats, penalties, and bureaucratic hate and contempt.
2] The second element was detaching ASIC from the Public Service, and turning it into a highly politicised, “Independent Law Firm”, Revenue Generating Government Profit Centre, able to prosecute anyone it feels like, especially the easily targeted “Low hanging fruit”.
I haven’t mentioned effectively being “The Judge, Jury, and Executioner” of Financial Services, rather than being an objective Regulator in the interests of ALL Australians, as a Government Regulatory Entity should be.
As the 19th Century German Medical community said repeatedly: “The operation was successful [technically], but the patient died”.