Adviser movements ‘stable’ for first time in years

According to Wealth Data, there was a net loss of 13 advisers for the week ending 2 March, with the total number of advisers now sitting at 15,850.

This week, 72 advisers joined or left licensees and the year-to-date growth is still in the positive, with a net growth of 41 advisers.

Wealth Data founder Colin Williams said: “All the recent data is clearly indicating that the adviser market has stabilised for the first time in many years”.

“We may have to go back to pre-2016, the year that allowed accountants to commence providing limited SMSF advice on a restricted AFSL, which saw a flood of new ‘advisers’ come onto the ASIC FAR.”

Mr Williams added that it is important for advisers to keep their information up to date on the Financial Advisers Register (FAR).

“I checked in with ASIC who run the ‘Moneysmart’ website, which includes the ‘Financial Advisers Register - Check a financial adviser’ search page. I asked as to how many views this page gets and the answer was a whopping 40,000 views per month,” he said.

“That’s an incredible number of views and highlights that checking out an adviser through a government-funded website is very important to a lot of people. We didn’t get a breakdown of the viewers, but I presume they come from all walks of life.”

Peninsula Wealth added three advisers from the AMP Group in the week ending 2 March, two coming from AMP Financial Planning and one from Hillross.

Sequoia Group ended the week up two advisers, after hiring four into Interprac and losing two others. Of the new advisers, three came from Consultum (Insignia).

Paradigm Group (licensee owner Patrick Nalty) and MWL Group both gained two advisers, with the former gaining both from Avanti Group and the latter bringing over one from Lifespan and the other from Associated Concepts.

There were 16 licensee owners up one adviser, including Sambe Investments, Shaw and Partners, ASVW Holdings, and Morgans Group.

Insignia continued to lose advisers, following up its loss of six advisers last with five this week. Centrepoint was down four, while AMP Group and Lifesherpa both lost three.

Diverger, Industry Super Holdings, Viridian, and WT Financial Group were among 22 licensee owners down one adviser each.