While paraplanners may have no desire to become a financial adviser, almost 90% believe they have an influence over the advice given to clients.
A survey by Tanngo and Paraplanner Hub of 135 paraplanners found 72% were looking to remain as paraplanners in the long-term, compared to 28% who wanted to become advisers.
The volume who most wanted to become an adviser were those who were employed as opposed to contractors or self-employed paraplanners.
“Unsurprisingly, the paraplanners that have the biggest desire to move to adviser roles are employed paraplanners,” it said.
“This suggests that employed paraplanners could be the perfect candidates for the Professional Year programme to cultivate new advisers for our industry.”
However, while the remainder were content to remain as paraplanners, this did not mean they felt excluded from the advice process.
Only 21% of paraplanners were registered on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) Financial Advisers Register, which was not a legal requirement, but they believed they had influence over client’s advice and product choices.
Some 89% said they believed they had influence on the advice provided to a client on strategy and 70% believed they had influence on the advice provided to a client on products.
More than half said their influence had increased since the introduction of Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms.
The report said: “It could suggest that paraplanners are critical to developing appropriate and compliant advice for our clients. If this is the case, then they should have recognisable qualifications so that all produce advice is suitably qualified and their qualifications are transparent and easily identifiable for those who employ their services.
“Maybe there could be a future where we see two names on the statement of advice – the paraplanners and the adviser, both responsible for the advice and both qualified to develop and deliver advice.”
