Advice sector offsets double-digit losses

The industry has regained the majority of losses seen in the previous week, with one licensee seeing a gain of six new advisers. 

According to Wealth Data’s statistics for the week to 12 September, there were gains of 14 advisers during the period.

This almost successfully offsets the 15 losses seen in the week prior and brings the net change for the calendar year 2024 to -111. The losses were attributed to a lower number of new entrants and advisers transitioning between licensees.

Some 35 licensee owners had net gains of 43 advisers, while 20 had net losses of 31 advisers. Three new licensees commenced and two ceased, each losing one adviser.

The biggest beneficiary of the movement was Jordan Gitani (Smartmove Advice) which gained six advisers, all of whom switched across from Next Generation Advice (NGAA). As a result, NGAA was down by eight advisers to see the biggest loss that week.

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Three licensees were up by two including WT Financial Group, and 31 licensees were up by one including AMP Group and Bell Financial.

Looking at losses, Count lost four advisers from Merit Wealth and none of them have yet been appointed elsewhere. Count CEO Hugh Humphrey previously detailed the impact of Merit Wealth adviser churn on the business where around 24 Merit advisers have left.

On a shareholder webinar in early September, Humphrey said: “When we announced the acquisition, I said 550 financial advisers would be the combined ARs at completion and that’s because the limited ARs on our books, largely within Merit Wealth, are a different type of authorisation who may only give advice once or twice a year or do a piece of work for a client around a self-managed superannuation fund. That’s very different to an adviser who has 150–200 ongoing financial advice clients and very different in their revenue.”

O&Z Pty (Havana Financial Services) was down by two advisers where both of them moved to Finchley & Kent.

A tail of 17 licensee owners were down by a net one each including Unisuper, Infocus and Macquarie Group.

There were 17 new entrants during the week which was the highest proportion since the first week of August.

The week also saw the publication of the latest ASIC financial advice exam results – Money Management recently unpacked why the pass rate was so low. 

This was attributed to a wider range of candidates sitting the exam beyond existing advisers. 

Speaking with Money Management, Fourth Line CEO Joel Ronchi explained: “Up until the end of 2022, everyone sitting the exam was effectively an existing adviser or someone in their professional year. Now in January of this year, ASIC opened up the exam to anyone who wants to sit it.

“Instead of it being someone who’s been a practitioner for three years or whatever it might have been in the past, some ex-advisers are sitting the exam, compliance people who want to open up their career options are sitting it, associate advisers, client service officers – all the peripheral support staff are now saying: ‘I don’t need to wait until my professional year to do the exam.’”