Should government consider program to incentivise people to enter financial advice?

The federal government could look at incentives to support people entering financial advice in a bid to curb declining numbers, an industry figure has suggested.

As the jobs and skills summit continues in Canberra — where low financial adviser numbers are expected to be addressed — Midwinter’s head of advice sales, Stacey Cowan, put forward the suggestion to ifa after noting that the increase in professional standards has led to a decrease in adviser numbers in Australia.

“The government could look at incentives to support people entering the profession. For example, the Victorian government just announced a plan to pay for the degrees of more than 10,000 nursing and midwifery students,” Ms Cowan said.

“Could a similar program incentivise people to enter the financial advice profession?”

It comes after an opinion piece written by Ms Cowan and published on ifa earlier this year, advocated that advisers look at “the great resignation” as a “great reset” and consider how it can help their practice.  

The financial advice software provider head also discussed advice businesses using technology in regards to the government’s intention to address women having equal opportunities and said that providing flexible working arrangements promotes better opportunity for people to remain in the workforce and balance other responsibilities.

“To enable this flexibility, advice businesses need technology that supports a hybrid work environment,” Ms Cowan said.

“The world of advice tech can be confusing; we hear from many advice professionals that they just don’t have time to review and implement new technology. At the summit, we can anticipate a discussion around how digitalisation can boost productivity, as technology continues to play a crucial role in supporting advice practices’ employees, operations, and clients.”

Speaking to ifa earlier this week, FINSIA CEO and managing director, Yasser El-Ansary, said the summit will “undoubtedly” be an important catalyst for a wide-ranging policy discussion about “how we position our economy for the future”.

“For too long now, we have generally failed to adequately prepare for the long-term structural changes that are already impacting our economy,” Mr El-Ansary said.

“We know that the skills which will propel the growth of our economy into the future will be significantly different from the skills we have relied on in the past — I hope and expect the summit will create a strong platform for the whole community to engage in this discussion over coming months. Everyone in the community has a stake in creating a strong economy that is supported by skills and capability building for the long term.”

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.