Small licensees account for third of advisers
The banks may be out of financial advice with AMP having sold its advice business but small licensees still represent barely a third of the financial advice market.
Wealth Data principal, Colin Williams has told Financial Newswire’s Advice Wealth and Super Conference that the mid-size to large advice licensees still dominate the advice market despite the rise and rise of micro-licensees.
Williams also pointed out that while there are over 15,500 advisers on the Financial Adviser Register, only 14,129 can offer investment advice on wrap accounts.
Looking at the split between larger licensees and micro-licensees, he said It highlights that 4,962 advisers sit on a total of 1,557 licensees at an average of 3.19 advisers per licensee.
“This translates 35.11% of all advisers working across 92.13% of all licensees,”
Williams’ comments to the conference came at the same time as his latest analysis of the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) revealed another week of advisers churning between licensees rather than there being significant numbers of new entrants to the profession.
Key Adviser Movements For This Period
- Net change of advisers (-1)
- Current number of advisers at 15,578
- Net Change Calendar 2025 YTD +102
- Net Change Financial YTD +235
- 25 Licensee Owners had net gains of 33 advisers
- 20 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-27) advisers
- Five new licensees and zero ceased
- 7 New entrants
- Number of advisers active in this period, appointed / resigned: 63.
Growth – Licensee Owners
- A new licensee commenced with three advisers, and the advisers are still currently authorised at Northhaven Financial Management
- Another new licensee also commenced with three advisers who left Australian Advice Network
- Four licensee owners up by net two
- Spark Financial Group with both advisers moving across from Fortnum part of Entireti & Akumin Group
- Sensible Investment with one adviser each from Paragem, owned by Count Limited and Excalibur Wealth Group
- Oreana with both advisers moving across from Fitzpatricks
- Australian Financial Planning with both advisers showing as being still authorised at Step Up Financial Group.
- 19 licensee owners up by net one adviser each including Morgans, Ord Minnett and the remaining three new licensees.
Losses – Licensee Owners
- Australian Advice Network down by three, as mentioned above moving to a new licensee
- Industry Super Holdings also down by three and none of the advisers showing as being authorised elsewhere to date
- Three licensee owners down by net two
- Entireti & Akumin Group appointed two, including one new entrant and lost four advisers
- Fitzpatricks as mentioned above, both advisers moving to Oreana
- Insignia losing one each from Bridges and Shadforths, neither have been appointed elsewhere to date.
- A tail of 14 licensee owners down by net one each including; Count Limited, Sequoia and Perpetual.
I don’t know why you would not be self licensed. It’s all about professionalism and prioritizing the clients needs as opposed to be aligned and brainwashed with some large AFSL promoting their SMA.
I don’t know why you would other than to avoid scrutiny
Avoid scrutiny from whom?
Regulators? Nope. They persecute all professional advisers with equal relish.
Dealer group management who ostracise, bully, and launch weaponised compliance against advisers who don’t sell enough inhouse SMAs? Yep. That’s exactly the sort of scrutiny and conflict advisers would do well to avoid.
It’s not all black and white – there’s good dealer groups and bad, same as there is good and bad self licensed firms. It’s a positive that as advisers and business owners we can choose the model that works best for us.
Thats an odd Comment Alan, I Work in a self-licensed practice and the RM is very diligent! Theres a lot on the line.