Jones’ 30,000 advisers number will take decades
The Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones has asserted that Australian advisers numbers may return to as many as 30,000 but the available data suggests it will take close to 20 years.
While adviser numbers plummeted from around 28,000 to the current 15,584 between 2018 and today, data analysis undertaken by WealthData suggest that, in the absence of the Government changing the rules about who can provide advice, it will take close to eight years to grow numbers back above 20,000.
WealthData principal, Colin Williams said that to achieve a doubling of current adviser numbers over the next decade would require a growth rate of 7.2% but this then needed to be weighed against the attrition rate of 6%.
He noted that adviser numbers had only just begun to stabilise since the time-table around the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority exam had expired in June, last year, but that 607 advisers had exited the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) in 2022/23.
Williams said that this then needed to viewed against the fact that only 373 new entrants had been registered on the FAR. The outcome was that last financial year the profession had still suffered a 3.7% decline.
“Even post FASEA we’re still not getting enough through to level off the exits. It has definitely flattened but we’ve not moved into positive territory,” he said.
“Of course, it all depends on how you define a financial adviser,” Williams said.
That’s like saying the ASX-200 will get to 5,000,000.
It might, but it will take centuries. A forecast of a future value without a timeframe is utterly useless.
The Minister has shown himself to be not across his brief, and quite possibly innumerate.
This is a disingenuous framing technique by the devious Jones. He is creating this myth of a need for 30,000 advisers, to try and justify allowing unqualified union super sales staff to give “advice”.
What is really needed is a fix for the hot mess of bad regulation that stops existing professional advisers from servicing more clients at a lower cost. While Jones talks about fixing this, he is deliberately delaying action, because preventing consumers from accessing professional advice suits his union super agenda.
I have become increasingly suspicious and cynical of the Ministers intent for our profession.
Jonesy is flailing and achieving little.
Maybe that’s his exact goal.
Continue to do NOTHING to reduce BS Red Tape, moronic costly Real Adviser compliance cost and stupid mass over regulation.
Focus on finding ways to say there’s not enough Real Advisers so we must need Industry Super Call Centre jockeys to do the Advice / Sales job.
Another disgusting Real Adviser stitch-up gathers momentum.
Talk is cheap, real policy reform much much harder (improbable) if there is no benefit or gain for a politician and their Party
Jones won’t know if his backside was on fire…
The reality is neither side of politics wants Financial Advisers – that’s obvious! Industry Funds providing financial advice now without the stringent educational standards and compliance regime, whist I watch Real Insurance marketed on T.V and sold by unqualified telemarketers – come on! We are represented by weak self-serving industry bodies, whilst we are caught in a regulatory system deliberately designed to make doing business impossible. The outlook is NOT GOOD!
what typical propaganda rhetoric from a Polititian – a throw away line to keep the hords at bay… absolute rubbish
Why do I feel this has all gone in a big circle? We started out with no end in site ! Just a heap of useless education requirements on a one size fits all basis ! I did the FASEA exam like everyone else and still have no idea why
Questions in relation to nothing I would ever do but did them anyway ! Now we are entering a past “world” again where super fund employees with no certification or industry experience are going to be set loose on the public
We all know the public is already brainwashed with the compare the pair adds and unfortunately they will go to the industry behemoths for free or cheap advice and utter the words it must be right the super fund told me so
Dear lord ! Get ready AFCA your work is just getting started if the goes forward
One thing is certain going forward, Jones has already managed to get a large proportion of the adviser vote (and their client base) off-side, come next election he and his Party will face the same reckoning as his predecessor MP Jane Hume & Co.
He thinks that will not matter in my view or he wouldn’t be so unresponsive. He probably is getting some back handed $’s reward from the industry funds and unions. Walk away with a bucket load of cash that no one will find out about until they do! CFMEU corrupt why not Jones as well. He can play dumb but with everyone shouting at him and he still ignores us – he doesn’t care. In for a short/good time not for the long haul I think.
And pigs may fly!
Jones is an imbecile, incompetent, and irrelevant.
Yeah, it’ll get there no doubt…
25,000 – unqualified hacks peddling product
5,000 – fully qualified advisers