Yeah, nah on prodigal advisers
More than 190 financial advisers have left the financial advice profession over the last two years only to make the decision to re-enter, according to the latest analysis from WealthData principal, Colin Williams.
Williams has compared adviser numbers for the period January to April for 2024 and 2025 and has observed that a significant number of advisers have decided to re-enter the profession, sometimes after many months or even years.
He noted that there had been more growth in year to date terms in 2025 than was the case last year, but noted that overall numbers had remained largely static.
“What is of interest is that the number of advisers current at April 30, 2025 of 15,591 is the exact same as April 30, 2024, i.e. zero growth over the last 12 months,” he said. “What happened is that we lost 115 advisers from May 1, 2024 to Dec 31 2024 and gained 115 advisers from Jan 1, 2025 to April 30, 2025.”
“A key driver of growth has been new entrants /new advisers who normally commence on the ASIC FAR as provisional advisers. For the 2024 period, 109 advisers (95 still current), commenced compared to 180 for the 2025 period. Data available of Dashboard 13 of Licensee Deep Dive Dashboards.
“We have also seen strong numbers of adviser coming back into advice, sometimes after many months and years of being out of advice. For the 2025 period, some 256 advisers have resigned and ceased. After allocating the 180 new advisers, there is still a shortfall of 76 plus the gain of +115 advisers = 191. This is the number of advisers who have come back into advice,” Williams said.
Key Adviser Movements For This Period
- Net change of advisers (-9)
- Current number of advisers at 15,607
- Net Change Calendar 2025 YTD +131
- Net Change Financial YTD +263
- 26 Licensee Owners had net gains of 37 advisers
- 30 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-42) advisers
- Four new licensees and three ceased
- Five New entrants
- Number of advisers active in this period, appointed / resigned: 92.
Growth – Licensee Owners
- A new licensee commenced with five advisers who switched from Havana Financial Services owned by O Z Pty Ltd
- Trustee For CCAFP, trading as CCA Financial Planners, gained four advisers from Victoria Teachers Limited and this licensee is now down to zero
- Shaw and Partners up by three, the advisers are from Bell Potter and currently still authorised at Bell Potter.
- Two licensee owners up by net two
- Another new licensee with both advisers moving from Spark Financial
- Koda Capital after a shift in movement between their two licensees
- 21 licensees owners up by plus one including Count Limited, Morgans and the remaining two new licensees.
Losses – Licensee Owners
- O + Z Pty Ltd (Havana Financial Services, down by four, as mentioned above with advisers starting their own licensee
- Vitoria Teachers Limited, also down by four advisers and now down to zero advisers. All four advisers switching to CCA Financial Planning
- M Point Superannuation down by three, all three advisers are yet to be appointed elsewhere
- Four licensee owners down by two: ABC Financial Planning, Financial Services Group, NTAA and Private Portfolio Management and none of the advisers affected been appointed elsewhere
- A tail of 23 licensee owners down by net one each including Insignia, Sequoia and Perpetual.
Those “re-entering” the profession are not necessarily former practising advisers. In the lead up to FASEA implementation, there were many support staff, paraplanners, compliance officers, BDMs, and other associated roles who were registered by their employers as advisers, so they would not have to go through FASEA’s new entrant requirements if they subsequently chose to become advisers. Most of these registrations were then cancelled in subsequent years, as the waiver from new entrant requirements persists as long as they were registered some time before the cut off date (2018?).
This is also why there was a huge increase in adviser number prior to FASEA implementation, followed by a huge reduction. The oft quoted reduction in adviser numbers from 28K at its peak to 15K now is not really a true reflection, as the 28K peak was inflated by a lot of registrations from non advisers.
They are on the register, but are they advising?