Adviser numbers stabilise


The number of actual advisers slightly rose to 19,104 this week after a couple of busy weeks at the end of the financial year which saw advisers leave the industry in droves.
According to Wealth Data, while the numbers of advisers in July might look even more optimistic the industry was still seeing resignations dated into June and gains booked in for July due to that fact that licensees had up to 30 days to report adviser movement.
The net change this week of 12 adviser roles was driven by 48 appointments and 36 resignations, followed by 39 licensees reporting net gains of 53 roles and 30 license owners seeing net losses of 41 roles.
Wealth Data also showed that licensees with 100 or more advisers was made up of only 37 licensees (1.76%) of all licensees, but they represented 8,910 (45.64%) of all adviser roles.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, there were 777 single adviser licensees which accounted for 36.91% of all licensees but only 4.01% of all adviser roles.
By comparison, Money Management’s 2020 TOP Financial Planning Groups research found that over the last five years the total number of the Australian financial services license (AFSL) holders rapidly went up from 1,200 in 2015 to around 2,100 in 2020.
At the same time, the percentage of groups that had between two and 10 active planners grew to 51% against 46% in 2018.
Source: Wealth Data
According to Wealth Data, the financial planning peer group was still the most dominant with 1,148 licensees or 54.54% of all licensees and 12,033 or 62.09% of all adviser roles.
Source: Wealth Data
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