Adviser desire to stick with 'safe' institutions drops

Forte Asset Solutions managing director Steve Prendeville unveiled the survey results at the annual ifa Business Strategy Day held in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne this week.

In a significant change from the last survey, more than 73 per cent of advisers who are considering switching dealer groups indicated they would choose a non-institutionally aligned outfit.

This represents a large upward swing from 2014, when 54 per cent said they would be likely to move to a non-aligned dealer group.

Commenting on the change, Mr Prendeville said: "Whilst the dominance [of institutions] continues, the preference of advisers moving is to non-aligned and that's been an unparalleled experience in the last seven years.

"However, this is a reversion of the business cycle. During the GFC, what we saw was that many were drawn to the safety, the safe subsidised harbour of the institutions, their brand, their capital support and their low-cost structure. So, it was driven by mainly fiscal requirements. Now that we've come through that storm, many are now looking to move into the non-aligned space and what we're seeing now is a movement of advisers."

The InvestorDaily Dealer Group of Choice Survey, which collated the responses of 695 advisers, also revealed that overall satisfaction had improved from the previous survey.

In 2014, 18.7 per cent of advisers were not satisfied with their current dealer, while in 2015 this number had improved slightly, with 16.4 per cent saying their satisfaction level was low.

However, Mr Prendeville cautioned ifa Business Strategy Day attendees about the challenges that come with changing dealer groups.

"You only want to do it once; people underestimate the things that are involved with transitioning," he said. "One of the things people forget is that... you cannot be confident that you are going to get 100 per cent migration of data and there is a significant amount of work."

According to the InvestorDaily Dealer Group of Choice Survey, there are currently 750 dealer groups, 8,000 practices and 18,000 advisers in Australia, with 70 per cent of advisers being directly or indirectly linked to product manufacturers.

The survey also covers where advisers might move, why they might move, and which dealer groups had the highest levels of satisfaction.