Institution size a consideration

financial-advisers/wealthdigital/ASIC/australian-securities-and-investments-commission/rob-lavery/

27 August 2019
| By Jassmyn |
image
image
expand image

Financial advisers looking to move to a smaller licensee should pause for thought, wealthdigital believes.

Pointing to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) latest research on planning perceptions, wealthdigital said respondents identified a firm’s reputation, size, and focus on advice as key characteristics.

Wealthdigital’s manager of policy and technical services, Rob Lavery said: “While not keen on firms that have a main focus somewhere other than financial planning, consumers do seek size as an assurance of security”.

Advisers looking to move away from large institutions should consider this, Lavery added.

He noted that knowledge and expertise were core reasons why consumers sought advice.

The research said the top issues that Australians wanted financial advice on was investments, retirement income planning, growing their superannuation, budgeting or cashflow management, and aged care planning.

“Aged care planning also ranked higher than some of the traditional financial planning services, such as life insurance, switching super and estate planning, on respondents’ hierarchy of advice needs,” Lavery said.

“There are a lot of advice specialities being promoted currently, and the need for good aged care advice isn’t just one for the future, ASIC’s research highlights that it is need now. The same is true of cashflow advice.”

However, Lavery pointed to the lack of trust and confidence in advice which he said was “particularly concerning”.

“The opportunity for advisers to broaden their services to fulfil the needs consumers identified through the research is significant,” he said.

Read more about:

AUTHOR

Recommended for you

sub-bgsidebar subscription

Never miss the latest news and developments in wealth management industry

MARKET INSIGHTS

So we are now underwriting criminal scams?...

2 months 3 weeks ago

Glad to see the back of you Steve. You made financial more expensive, not more affordable as you claim, and presided ...

2 months 3 weeks ago

Completely agree Peter. The definition of 'significant change is circumstances relevant to the scope of the advice' is s...

4 months 4 weeks ago

ASIC has suspended the Australian Financial Services Licence of a Melbourne-based financial advice firm....

1 week 4 days ago

The corporate regulator has issued infringement notices to three AFSLs whose financial advisers provided personal advice to a retail client while unregistered....

2 weeks 3 days ago

ASIC has released the results of its first adviser exam to be held in 2025, with 241 candidates attempting the test....

3 weeks 1 day ago

TOP PERFORMING FUNDS

ACS FIXED INT - AUSTRALIA/GLOBAL BOND