AMP still bullish on traditional licensees

In May, AMP unveiled its strategy to seek “increased margin” from its new AMP Advice subsidiary, the “technology-enabled, goals-based advice” business it began transitioning all advisers in its salaried ipac channel to in late 2016.

In an exclusive interview with ifa, following a tour of the company's 'Goals 360 Experience', Jack Regan, AMP’s group executive, advice and New Zealand, said that while the company is optimistic about AMP Advice, investment in this channel does not indicate diminishing importance of its existing advice subsidiaries.

“We’re a broad church and this becomes part of the play for the future,” Mr Regan said. “Across the portfolio of advice businesses, each of them have their own place.”

The raft of changes to the structure and governance of its advice network announced in March have allowed the various subsidiaries to become “more different rather than less”, he said.

“If you think of [AMP Financial Planning] as very much a mass-market and widescale national footprint, if you think about Hillross as very much the affluent brand, Charter is very much an adviser-centric business and then of course you have AMP Advice, which is emerging as our full-branded new advice experience solution going forward, so there will be things that we take from all of those,” Mr Regan said.

AMP Advice reps will primarily use the approved product list of the AMP FP channel, Mr Regan revealed, with both businesses coming under the one unit along with AMP Direct and AMP Horizons under the restructure. Some advisers, such as those transitioning from Charter or Hillross will use their existing APL. 

Mr Regan also said the company may seek to white-label its goals modelling technology, providing it to its traditional licensee businesses or even the IFA market. 

The comments come despite a 14 per cent reduction in the size of AMP’s adviser force over the past year, including a 19.9 per cent decline at Charter, a 7.7 per cent decline at AMP FP and a 7.2 per cent decline at Hillross.

Clarification: A previous version of this article reported that AMP Advice will use AMP Financial Planning's APL. It has subsequently been amended to clarify that while most AMP Advice representatives will use this APL, some may use other lists in operation within the AMP group.