AMP drops below 1000 adviser benchmark
The number of financial advisers employed by AMP Limited has dropped below 1,000 in a week which has seen the first real flow-through of the 48% failure rate from the last financial adviser exam with 128 advisers exiting the Financial Adviser Register.
According to the latest analysis from WealthData, AMP Limited now has 998 advisers listed on the FAR, confirming Insignia’s status as emplying the largest number of financial advisers.
WealthData principal, Colin Williams said that adviser losses in the past week had been high and he believed the vast majority were a result of the failure rate of the last financial adviser exam.
What is more, he said he expected similar numbers of losses would show up over coming weeks.
According to WealthData, which is owned alongside Financial Newswire, the top 10 licensees by advisers numbers are:
- Insignia Group
- AMP Group
- Centrepoint Group
- WT Financial Group
- Morgans Group
- Diverger Limited
- Sequoia Group
- Count Group
- Ord Minnett Group
- National Tax and Accountants Group.
Key Adviser Movements This Week:
Net Change of advisers (-149)
19 Licensee Owners had net gains for 23 advisers
81 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-172) advisers
2 new licensees commenced and (-10) ceased
8 Provisional Advisers (PA) commenced and none ceased.
Summary
A busy week as many advisers fall off the FAR due to not passing the Financial (FASEA) exam. We also see AMP Group drop below 1,000 advisers. Loss of experienced advisers more than 150.
Growth This Week
A very small number of licensee owners showing growth at just 19 with a total net growth of only 23 advisers. 4 licensee owners up net 2 including Walker Lane who brought 2 advisers from Synchron, Capstone with advisers from RI Advice and GPS, Birds Holdings (RSM) both being Provisional Advisers and Chris Brycki (Stockspot) who commence with 2 advisers from Sanlam Private Wealth.
15 licensee owners up net 1 including Centrepoint, Viridian, Oracle and 1 new licensee.
Only 12 switches in this week and two of these were advisers switching between Centrepoint owned licensees.
Losses This Week
Losses were very high and we believe the vast majority are due to the non passing of the Financial Adviser (FASEA) Exam. We suspect that we will see more losses in the coming weeks for the same reason. Note: Licensees have 30 days to report adviser movement and advisers who needed to pass the exam had to do so by Sep 30.
WT Financial Group now net (-23), losing 26 and appointing 3 with Synchron alone down net (-24). Diverger at (-14), with Merit down (-89), GPS down (-6) and Paragem appointing 1 adviser. Ord Minnett down (-13), no advisers switching.
Bluewater and Castleguard (Lifespan) both down (-7), in both businesses, none of the advisers switching elsewhere.
AMP Group down (-6) and this saw AMP Group drop below 1,000 advisers and are now at 998. At the start of 2019 they had more than 2,600 advisers. Morgans also down (-6) losing 7 and one Provisional Adviser joining.
8 licensee owners down (-3) including Insignia Group, Politis, and Sanlam Private Wealth. 6 Licensee owners down (-2) including Guideway, Financial Link and Grimsey Wealth.
A very long tail of 60 licensee owners down (-1) each. Of the 10 licensees that closed, 9 only had the 1 adviser and 1 had 2 advisers.
Net Change of Advisers by Licensee Owners
Looking for gains over 1 year, Count stands out at plus 34 followed by Centrepoint at 14 and capstone at 6. As for losses, National Tax and Accounting Association has suffered the greatest loss at (-327) followed by Insignia at (-307) and AMP Group at (-234).
I left AMP over 19 years ago and never looked back. While they were a great training ground, it quickly became obvious the blinkers were held tightly on with too many restrictions for AMP’s benefit over top of the clients’ or the advisers.
While it has been a long time coming, it was obvious this end was inevitable, especially in a post GFC regulatory world.