Centrepoint vows increased advocacy for advisers amid ‘political focus’ on industry

In an address delivered at Centrepoint Alliance’s annual general meeting (AGM) last week, chairman Simon Swanson declared the licensee’s commitment to intensify advocacy efforts amid a backdrop of escalating regulatory scrutiny and heightened political attention on the industry.

“It is evident that the pendulum has swung too far towards overregulation,” Mr Swanson said.

“Both regulators and policymakers recognise the need for simplification in financial advice processes to make quality financial guidance accessible to all Australians, regardless of their means.”

The core objective of Centrepoint’s advocacy will be “to achieve the simplification of the processes around financial advice”, Mr Swanson said, as well as to reduce some of the “financial burden placed on financial advisers through unnecessary costs and regulatory processes”.

“Achieving economies of scale is fundamental to Centrepoint Alliance just as it is for financial advice practices. By building scale, there will be more time and financial resources for Centrepoint to deploy for the benefit of financial advisers,” Mr Swanson said.

“For financial advice practices, economies of scale allows investments in systems and processes to make them more efficient so they can spend more time in front of clients. This will also lead to more efficiencies so that they can both improve and maximise the financial situation of their existing and new clients.”

While Centrepoint will focus on building scale organically through both adviser recruitment and increased services, Mr Swanson noted that it will “selectively look to acquisitions to augment growth”.

“We will have a sharp focus on ensuring that any acquisitions either increase the scale of the business and/or broaden the level and quality of services that we can deliver to Centrepoint’s adviser community.”

Separately at the AGM, Centrepoint Alliance’s chief executive officer, John Shuttleworth, underscored the licensee’s role in advice, highlighting its standing as the “clear number three in the market” with 511 advisers operating under its licenses.

Mr Shuttleworth also referred to Centrepoint’s self-licensing business as “strong” with a market share of around 11 per cent.

“In an industry where services are highly fragmented, our future plans include the development of key adviser infrastructure, or ‘everything you need to run an advice business in the cloud’ which we refer to as the ‘adviser cloud’ initiative.”

Also last week, Centrepoint Alliance announced the acquisition of Brisbane-based financial advice firm Financial Advice Matters Group (FAM).

Touching on this at the AGM, Mr Shuttleworth said this acquisition would “accelerate our plans to build scale in the profitable employed advice channel”.