FAAA spruiks adviser recruitment
The Financial Advice Association of Australia (FAAA) has emphasised its intended creation of an Advice Academy amid measures to attract more people to become financial advisers.
The FAAA said its Jobs Portal was already proving successful in matching employers with suitably qualified candidates.
FAAA general manager, Education, Anne Palmer said the organisation was working hard to attract more people into the profession in the face of the sharp drop in numbers which had occurred over recent years.
“At 15,600 registered financial advisers, we now have almost half the number of advisers than we had working in 2019, when there were 28,000 at start of the year. Last year, just 317 new entrants joined the financial advice profession, so Australia now has just one authorised adviser for every 1,695 Australians; that is not nearly enough to meet the rising demand for financial advice from an ageing population,” Palmer said.
“With 750,000 Australians set to retire in the next five years, we expect much greater demand for advice. Three million Australians will become eligible to start drawing upon their superannuation in the next decade, on top of the six million who are already at or above superannuation preservation age, according to figures from ASIC.So many more advisers will be needed to deliver retirement advice alone.
“While good retirement outcomes do not depend on financial advice alone, good advice has a very important role to play in maximising the retirement wealth of Australians. All of this reinforces the need for the industry to attract and train up more financial advisers,” said Palmer.
According to Palmer, the onus is falling on smaller Australian Financial Services Licence firms (AFSLs) to recruit advisers, with the size of AFSLs falling.
“That means that new entrants can no longer rely on big employers to run large graduate intake programs. That has left the obligation on smaller-sized advisory businesses to train up new advisers,” she said.
Everyone agrees there is a shortage of advisers and something needs to be done to make the profession an attractive career path. However how can someone seriously talk to someone about becoming a financial adviser and not point out the huge target on your back that comes with the role.
The government, regulators, consumer groups and union funds will actively target you for the actions or in actions of others.
You will be forced to pay a levy and act as a litigation funder for the actions of product manufacturers and non licensed advisers.
You will be forced to pay a levy to pay compensation when you had nothing to do with the illegal actions of others.
You will be forced every year to get ever client to sign multiple forms to be paid from product manufacturers who will make it as hard as possible to renew those fees.
You will be forced to do study and ongoing CPD well in excess of other professions and then product manufacturers will be get given the green light to employ “qualified” advisers who don’t have to do any of this.
Yes promote the profession, but be honest about what you are walking into.
Maybe its just an academy for “qualified” advisers?
Dear Researcher,
As you so rightly point out the hurdles any existing or new adviser needs to negotiate, make this exercise look harder than if you were on the “Titanic”.
Add to that the demise of the life insurance industry with the introduction legislative changes to product, pricing and the number of entrants now in the marketplace.
You would have to question the sanity of anyone thinking this is a great opportunity
“How do we sell short courses for all the Backpackers (Qualified Advisers) these Super funds will need”…I wonder which leach said that first. We know what they’re doing and it’s not trying to get real Advisers into this industry.
Having a spent a long time dealing with the FPA and Universities and trying to get young students into Advice firms, I can confidently say they’re not doing this for you.