Female advisers comprise less than a quarter of the profession

Less than a quarter of advisers on the ASIC financial advisers register are female, according to Wealth Data, falling even further when it comes to those in the financial planning business model. 

Data showed that the overall number of female advisers is 23 per cent of total advisers, falling to 22 per cent for the financial planning model and 17 per cent for the investment advice model. 

The accounting and super fund business models of advice have the highest number of female advisers at 39 per cent and 34 per cent, respectively. 

On the positive side, there are increasing numbers of females coming on board in the industry more recently, with the proportion of female provisional advisers sitting at 35 per cent. 

Looking at the industry’s gender balance across decades, the period between January 2013 and December 2018 had the highest number of women at 31 per cent alongside 69 per cent being men.

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“We have seen a dip in female advisers post-January 2019. This is when FASEA qualifications came to the fore and the fallout from the royal commission began to kick in,” noted Colin Williams, Wealth Data founder.

The proportion of female advisers has since fallen to 28 per cent from 2019, although in a much smaller sized profession.

“The drop may be surprising given the PA percentage is at 35 per cent,” Williams added.

The founder observed the adviser market boom between 2013 and 2018 was driven by factors such as a greater number of banks hiring advisers, which used to have a higher proportion of female advisers on their staff.

Overall, Wealth Data saw a positive net change of nine advisers in the past week to 14 September. 

The current number of advisers stands at 15,709, with a net change of -90 for the calendar YTD and a net change of +144 in the new financial YTD.

Some 58 advisers were busy with appointments or resignations, while one new licensee commenced and zero ceased. Moreover, four new entrants joined the industry.

In terms of declines, 16 licensee owners had net losses of 24 advisers in total.

AMP Group was down by four advisers, losing two from AMP Financial Planning and one each from Charter Financial Planning and Hillross Financial Services. Count Group lost three in Affinia Financial Advisers, with all moving to Advisory Circle.

Three licensee owners were down by two this week, which included NextGen Financial Group, owned by The FinancialLink Group.

Last week, it was reported that the firm lost 13 advisers and a further 10 in the week prior. Its current adviser number sits at just 20 compared to a peak of 123 in 2019.

Both Capstone Financial Planning and Togethr Trustees also saw a loss of two advisers.

Some 11 licensee owners were down by one each, including Insignia Financial, Guideway, PictureWealth and Zurich Financial.

Looking at licensee growth, 27 had net gains of 33 advisers this week.

WT Financial Group was up by net three. The firm hired four advisers, two each at Wealth Today and Synchron, and lost one adviser to Synchron.

Stellan Capital Group welcomed two new entrants, alongside LFG Financial Services which also gained two advisers. One joined from NextGen and the other was a new entrant.

Finally, 23 licensee owners were up by one each, including Oreana Financial, Findex, Castleguard (Lifespan) and AIA Company.