National Australia Bank has restructured its branded financial planning business in a bid to provide better support for advisers, and will cut almost two-thirds of its entry-level advice positions to lift the overall standard of qualifications and improve the consistency of advice provided to clients.
The general manager of NAB Financial Planning, Tim Steele, says back office support for its advisers will be reorganised geographically, replacing the current national structure.
“We’re moving from what’s currently a channel-focused business, which is aligned to our personal bank, business bank and our self-employed business, to a state-based model where we think local geography, local relationships and understanding of local customers’ needs will be very important for us in continuing to evolve our advice offering aligned to our banking partners,” Steele says.
“It’s with the view that our teams are organised around the country in different ways, and rather than having national representation across the channels we’re going to focus, across channels, at a state-based level.”
Steele says a new role – head of client experience and advice development – has been created to help the bank develop and deliver an “enhanced and consistent client experience” across all of its channels and locations.
“We know we can provide richer and deeper support for our advisers at a local level than trying to organise it nationally,” he says.
“The head of client experience and advice development function is a national role, but it’s responsible for supporting our state-based GMs [general managers] to deliver customer outcomes consistently.”
As part of the restructuring NAB Financial Planning will abolish almost two-thirds of its 90 “entry-level” advice roles and will create 30 new senior financial planner positions.
Steele says NAB’s entry-level advisers “come from various backgrounds”.
“A number come though the bank to then pursue a career in financial planning,” he says.
Entry-level advisers today typically have less than six months’ experience in the profession.
“Our view was that whilst we’re absolutely committed to continue to support advisers coming in, when we thought about the future model we believed it was a more sustainable platform to reinvest in senior financial planners, but support a smaller number of advisers to be successful with, again, I think a much deeper support model,” Steele says.
“We can provide better support to 35 than we can to 90.”
Steele says that about half of the entry-level advisers cut will “end up back in advisory roles, and another 20 will take on client-review or admin support roles”.
“The balance we’d hope will pick up opportunities across the broader group,” he says.
He says one of their options might be to join other NAB licensees, but there will also be places for them “within the banking channel”.
“We are looking to tilt our advice footprint towards more financial planners and senior financial planners, and we’re increasing the number of admin support roles we’ve got within the business to enable our advisers to more effectively take care of their clients,” he says.
Steele says any senior financial planner joining NAB will be required to be a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) or be on track to becoming a CFP.
Steele says the restructuring will allow NAB to extend the coverage provided by its senior financial planners.
“We’re going to ask our new financial planners and senior financial planners to engage in markets where we may not have wealth advisers,” he says.
“And we’re going to focus our wealth advisers or associate financial planners primarily on our metropolitan and large regional centres.”
When the restructuring shakes out NAB Financial Planning will have “just over 400” financial planner across the country, Steele says.
“We’re not solving for a specific adviser number through this,” he says.
“We’re continuing to grow and invest and we’ve got a number of vacancies still within the broader network. This is about looking at what’s the right mix of our advice footprint, based on experience and support, given what we understand about our customer needs, and our banking partners.”
