New head of advice for FPSA

Dealer group Financial Planning Services Australia (FPSA) has created a new role of general manager of advice as part of a restructure of the group, appointing former consultant and Australian Financial Services head of distribution Danny Maher to the role.

Maher has been tasked with boosting the number of advisers in the group through the next 12 months. FPSA currently has nearly 60 advisers around the country.

Maher said he would go back to advisers who “have been unloved” and talk about what they would require in the future.

“These are very challenging times and [there's] a lot of uncertainty, and we don’t know if advisers will just throw their hands up and walk en masse out of the industry,” Maher said.

“Recruiting advisers going forward is going to be very challenging,” he said.

Maher said he joined FPSA to take advantage of its existing ‘in-house’ service offering, and will seek to take advantage of that when recruiting advisers and building revenue.

“FPSA has capital adequacy, which many dealer groups don’t have these days, they’ve got [professional indemnity] in place at a very competitive rate, and they have product backing on the Netwealth platform.

“These are three key components that a licensee has to have [to be] operating profitably these days,” he said.

In a reference to the recent release of planned industry reforms when announcing the appointment, FPSA emphasised that it does not rely on volume rebates or fund manager payments for operating costs.

FPSA was well positioned to take advantage of the recent industry reforms, the company said.