Super funds to pick up where banks left

Adviser Ratings founder Angus Woods told ifa that a “huge swathe” of advisers will be attracted to super funds during the next year or two.

“We are seeing a lot more of those sorts of organisations starting to bring on Industry Fund Services, Link Group and all those sorts of groups,” Mr Woods said.

“What we’re going to start seeing is the super funds really morph into where the banks left. And that’s partly because the Baby Boomers are all retiring and they don’t have a post-retiree model for a lot of people.

“They get to the end of their retirement and then they have to go off somewhere like a self-managed super fund. A lot of these funds don’t have the service capability, yes they have intrafund advisers, but not that full comprehensive advice that people are looking for.”

As the larger institutions have taken their exits from wealth, a lot of mid-tier groups have been taking on advisers, Mr Woods reported, and they have gained numbers from consolidations.

Lifespan Financial Planning and Centrepoint Alliance are among the firms he named as receiving advisers. Supporting dealer groups such as Alliance Wealth are also seeing an influx, where “one or two-man bands” that are operating under their own brand and may need help with compliance.

Mr Woods has taken to reporting adviser movements weekly through video updates on his LinkedIn, using AdviserRatings analysis of data from ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register.

His last video update stated that 354 advisers left the industry during the week to 2 July, while 40 switched licensees and three joined the industry.

Around 55 advisers were said to be affected in the VicSuper and First State Super merger that took place during that week.

Meanwhile, industry fund QSuper recently declared it would no longer provide in-house comprehensive advice to members.