The Most Trusted Adviser Network (MTAN) has grown to 112 as network’s creator, Beddoes Institute, expands the criteria for inclusion on the network to include other aspects of trust within adviser-client relationships.
The new Adviser Trust! Score (ATS) builds on the recognised Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures a client’s propensity to refer others to a product or service provider, and incorporates other aspects of a relationship that indicate strong levels of trust. The new ATS measure has replaced the NPS as a qualifying criteria for the MTAN.
For now, existing members of the MTAN (see table) remain in the network, having originally qualified by virtue of an NPS score of 50 or higher. Advisers are required to re-qualify for the MTAN every 12 to 18 months, will be reassessed under the new APS criteria, and be required to achieve a score of at least 85. (The NPS has a scale ranging from -100 to +100, while the ATS has a scale ranging from 0 to 100.)
Correlation analysis
“When we moved across to the Adviser Trust! Score a couple of months ago we did some correlation analysis between the NPS of advisers within our network, and we compared that to their ATS,” says Dr Rebecca Sheils (pictured), a director of Beddoes Institute.
“It’s relatively comparable, an ATS of 85 or more, to what our previous threshold of a NPS of 50 was.”
Sheils says that “pretty much everyone on the network [had an ATS of] 85 or higher, and if they weren’t 85 they were maybe sitting on the borderline of 84 or 83”.
“And there were less than five that fell into that category,” she says.
“So well and truly all of the advisers on the network are still eligible based on the new ATS criteria.
“We would have been posed a problem had we identified, say, an adviser that came in at 70 on the ATS. Then we would have been in a dilemma, but fortunately we didn’t have that situation arise. Everyone – well, 98 per cent – were 85 or above, and just a couple were within plus or minus 2 per cent. So clearly, everyone is very strong on the Adviser Trust! Score.”
Other criteria
Sheils says the ATS is “the qualifying metric” for being accepted into the MTA, but there is a range of other eligibility criteria as well.
“All advisers in the network need to [have been] managing a minimum of 40 clients in the last 12 months,” she says.
“They need to be truly working in an advice capacity with their client, not be just someone [working] part-time, not someone who is new to the sector and doesn’t have a full client load.
“We also have a criteria around having a minimum number of ratings, from our client experience survey. So if an adviser only had two client ratings, then of course we wouldn’t include them in the network because it wouldn’t be a representative sample.
“We also have a criteria around achieving a minimum response rate, and once again that’s to make sure it gets back to what we were speaking about a the beginning of the discussion: making sure we have enough clients that have rated these advisers in order for those ratings to be representative of the service that they are delivering to their clients.”
Qualified adviser
Sheils says an adviser must also have worked as a qualified adviser, within and advice practice, for at least five years.
“Again that talks to the experience and expertise of the individual,” she says.
“We don’t believe that anyone who has, say, two years’ experience can really be truly called a most trusteed adviser. That comes with experience, time on the ground, and expertise.
“We also require that our MTAs belong to other the AFA or the FPA because we think that belonging to a professional membership association is what all true professionals should do. And they also need to have achieved A or B compliance ratings for the last two consecutive years.
That eligibility criteria is really important, because we are making a promise to consumers that these advisers are most trusted advisers, and we need to make sure that we deliver on that promise.”
Sheils says there is scope for the MTA network to expand further but it will only ever cover a relatively small number of advisers.
“We need to make sure we retain that really high standard, and that’s why we have those tight qualifying criteria,” she says.
“We’re not going to relax that and we never envisage that we’re going to have thousands of MTAs on the network. We don’t see that. It is an elite group of best-of-breed advisers. That’s how it will sty, and because of that it will always be relatively contained. There’s obviously more room to move above 112, but we’re never going to have thousands.”
The network
| 1. Troy MacMillan | The Wealth Designers |
| 2. Stephen Kostarelas | The Wealth Designers |
| 3. Phillip Win | Profile Financial Services |
| 4. Kurt Ohlsen | Profile Financial Services |
| 5. Tim Perrin | Complete Financial Balance |
| 6. Tapel Cafer | Complete Financial Balance |
| 7. Kyle Thompson | Complete Financial Balance |
| 8. Graham Campbell | Complete Financial Balance |
| 9. David Clark | Clark Pacific Financial Services |
| 10. Catherine Robson | Affinity Private |
| 11. Sam Gawenda | Rising Tide Financial Services |
| 12. Matt Hale | Rising Tide Financial Services |
| 13. Craig Bigelow | Rising Tide Financial Services |
| 14. Ryan Merrett | Tribeca Financial |
| 15. Alistair Lee | Tribeca Financial |
| 16. William Bracey | Sydney Financial Planning |
| 17. Richard Stewart | Sydney Financial Planning |
| 18. Michal Bodi | Sydney Financial Planning |
| 19. Julia Schortinghuis | Lighthouse Capital |
| 20. George Vassiliou | Lighthouse Capital |
| 21. Bernard Schortinghuis | Lighthouse Capital |
| 22. Eleanor Dartnall | Dartnall Advisers |
| 23. PJ Byrne | Mr Insurance |
| 24. Troy Theobald | Robina Financial Solutions |
| 25. Natalie Goodall | Robina Financial Solutions |
| 26. Darko Zigic | Robina Financial Solutions |
| 27. Anne Graham | McPhail HLG Financial Planning |
| 28. Bryen Guy | Carrington Financial Services |
| 29. Brett Waters | Kingston Financial Services |
| 30. Steve Crawford | Experience Wealth |
| 31. Scott Brouwer | Prosperum Wealth |
| 32. Sasha Topolcsanyi | Prosperum Wealth |
| 33. David Jennings | Prosperum Wealth |
| 34. Bronwyn Cant | Vizion Financial Planning |
| 35. Christine Swanson | Prominent Financial Planners |
| 36. Christopher Bailie | Financial Footprint |
| 37. Finn Kelly | WE Private |
| 38. Andrew Wem | Navwealth Financial Group |
| 39. Drew Hickey | Navwealth Financial Group |
| 40. Craig Banning | Navwealth Financial Group |
| 41. Stuart Hollman | Navwealth Financial Group |
| 42. Rory Mooney | 360 Private Wealth By Design |
| 43. Christie Rigg | 360 Private Wealth By Design |
| 44. Tim Rogers | 360 Private Wealth By Design |
| 45. Greg Rundle | 360 Private Wealth By Design |
| 46. Stephen Catania | Assured Financial Partners |
| 47. Lisa Greeve | Greeve & Associates |
| 48. Mark Rando | Rando and Associates |
| 49. Brett Schatto | RI Blackwood/Nth Adelaide |
| 50. Nella Grida | RI Blackwood/Nth Adelaide |
| 51. Lauren Topp | ToppTunbridge |
| 52. Nick Tunbridge | ToppTunbridge |
| 53. David Davidson | Priority Life |
| 54. Bradley Gecelter | Priority Life |
| 55. Ross Vanderwolf | Rothgard Financial Partners |
| 56. Gino Saggiomo | Rothgard Financial Partners |
| 57. Justin Gilmour | Integro Private |
| 58. Brian Woods | Nexus Wealth Management |
| 59. Stuart Brown | Bartons |
| 60. Adam McCann | Bartons |
| 61. Daman Arthur | Bartons |
| 62. Steven Genoff | Bartons |
| 63. Asha Burrows | The Payne Group |
| 64. Chris Payne | The Payne Group |
| 65. Michelle Tate-Lovery | Unified Financial Services |
| 66. Lisa Haley | Unified Financial Services |
| 67. Justine Back | Back to Back Financial Planners |
| 68. Paul Reilly | Back to Back Financial Planners |
| 69. Vince Dore | Delphi Financial Management |
| 70. David Pitt | Panoramic Financial Solutions |
| 71. Derek Mondy | Panoramic Financial Solutions |
| 72. Calum Laing | Panoramic Financial Solutions |
| 73. Andrew Hollow | AHS Financial |
| 74. Heidi Schwegler | AHS Financial |
| 75. Adam Hurwood | Altitude Financial Group |
| 76. Christopher Taylor | Empire Financial Group |
| 77. James Wortley | Enlightened Financial Solutions |
| 78. Scott Jamieson | Enlightened Financial Solutions |
| 79. Benjamin Whitwell | FinAdvice Financial Planning |
| 80. John Grasso | Grasso Financial Services |
| 81. Tonia Sanderson | Grasso Financial Services |
| 82. Samantha Hamilton | Key Choice Financial Solutions/NCA Financial Planning |
| 83. Don McLeod | McLeod Watzdorf Financial Planning |
| 84. Werner Watzdorf | McLeod Watzdorf Financial Planning |
| 85. Ben Littleton | Perrier Ryan Financial Advisors Pty Ltd |
| 86. Troy Scott | Perrier Ryan Financial Advisors Pty Ltd |
| 87. Greg Lourens | SAM Group |
| 88. Paul Roberts | SAM Group |
| 89. Debbie Hudson | Wealth Fusion |
| 90. Alan Tickle | Your Heritage Financial Planning Pty Ltd |
| 91. Charles Read | FTS Financial Planning |
| 92. Emma Falkenmire | FTS Financial Planning |
| 93. Robert Beutum | FTS Financial Planning |
| 94. Daniel Sharp | Warrington Scott |
| 95. Prue Martin | Warrington Scott |
| 96. Glenn Sterrey | Bentleys Wealth Partners |
| 97. Josh Drake | Crosbie Wealth Management |
| 98. Mark Alexander | Crosbie Wealth Management |
| 99. Tim Deamer | Crosbie Wealth Management |
| 100. Katherine Hann | Affinity Financial Planning Australia |
| 101. Deborah Kent | Integra Financial Services |
| 102. Anthony Pears | Integra Financial Services |
| 103. Emma Oliver | Complete Financial Planning |
| 104. Kathy Boland | Complete Financial Planning |
| 105. Jenny Brown | JBS Financial Strategiests |
| 106. Glenn Malkiewicz | JBS Financial Strategists |
| 107. Warren Hanna | JBS Financial Strategists |
| 108. Esther Althaus | Perspective Financial Services |
| 109. Tatiana Coulter | Monarch Advisory Group |
| 110. Dianne Chalk | Hillross Fairy Meadow |
| 111. Dianne Charman | Jade Financial Group Pty Ltd |
| 112. Christine Hornery | FMS Group |
