FAAA merger provides a ‘stronger voice’

Speaking on an upcoming episode of the ifa podcast, former chief executive of the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and now head of policy at FAAA Phil Anderson said the merger of AFA with the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) provides “a stronger voice, a single voice that represents the vast majority of financial advisers”.

“Whether it’s legitimate or not, there was always this feedback from Canberra that you’re a disparate group, there’s too many voices representing advisors, and you’re all saying different things,” Mr Anderson told ifa.

“We can now say that argument doesn’t stack up anymore in that the largest association and the second largest association have got together, they represent probably two-thirds, if not more, of the advice population. That gives us a much stronger position to advocate from.”

AFA officially ceased operations on 30 June, following members voting in favour of the merger of the two associations at extraordinary general meetings (EGMs) in February.

Mr Anderson said another key benefit of the merged entity is the greater scale of economy that comes from being a larger association.

“We’ve rationalised obviously bringing the two organisations together. But we now have the capacity to offer more services to members and that means more events, more resources to get behind the things that are important to our members,” he said.

“I’d summarise it that a stronger voice, scales of economy to deliver more and deliver more value to members.”

He added that members also need to look beyond the idea of “working together” following the completion of the merger, as they are now one association.

“The FAAA board includes representation, people who are formerly with the AFA, people who are formerly with the FPA. But for all purposes, we are one organisation now and we will operate in that way,” Mr Anderson said.

“So, I think it’s come together very well and I think we’re all well positioned to push forward in this new phase that we have in front of us.”

According to Ben Neilson, founder and director of Neilson & Co Wealth Management, “the best thing for Australian financial planning was the merging of those two groups”.

“Without talking about the nuance of the group and some of the outputs of the group, and especially some of the funding of the group, having a single body is the last thing that we need before being a recognised profession,” Mr Neilson said.

“As soon as that happens, then we have all these roll-on benefits of trust. We can go to the Australian consumers and say all this stuff that happened, but since then all these things have changed.

“Every adviser has got a bachelor’s degree or a graduate certificate or an ethics course – whatever needs to happen to be registered on the Financial Advisers Register through ASIC.

“So, we’re not saying that things didn’t happen. They did happen. But since then, there’s been so much progress and we can now say that we are a recognised profession and as such the regulation should come down because we have professional authority.”

Glen Hare, co-founder and adviser at Fox & Hare, told ifa the merger was a welcome development going into the new financial year, and one that advisers should have faith in.

“Having a unified professional body through the FAAA headed up by Sarah Abood, who is a huge advocate for advice and what we do for our clients, is really exciting,” Mr Hare said.

“Creating that one community is going to create or deliver greater collaboration between advisers, enabling us to learn from each other.”