ING to attract young advisers

ING plans to reduce its shortage of young advisers with a development program starting next April, which it hopes will attract 20 new financial planners into the business annually.

ING Financial Planning general manager Steve Thomson said the program would provide entry points into the profession, and help plug gaps left by planners retiring or selling their businesses.

“Like most institutions, our adviser age is closer to 60 than 40… Just through natural attrition we have adviser loss in numbers every year.”

Thomson said the company had successfully piloted a similar program in June 2005.

He said ING aimed to recruit four experienced senior planners, and 16 technology savvy rookies who were PS 146 compliant but not already financial planners for a start in April 2006.

Candidates would be interviewed twice, and tested for verbal, critical, numerical, reasoning and sales skills.

“It’s great to be a technician, but this is still a people business, and it’s still about relationships and selling,” Thomson said.

He said other organisations such as the Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and the ANZ also had junior planner roles, but tended to restrict them to giving advice on risk and superannuation.

“We’ve taken the view that if we’re supervising them adequately, and they’re already trained, then there’s no reason why they can’t already be giving advice on investments.”

Thomson said while the program had no set duration, it was expected that individuals would be ready to move into salaried positions in a dealer group, or start their own businesses under the brand of one of ING’s dealer groups — Retireinvest, Tandem or Millennium 3 — within two to three years.