“Professional financial planning practices will take a lead from all the other professions”, said Paul Harding-Davis of AdviceIQ, and put in place Licence and ownership arrangements that ensure they have:
• Control over the quality of their professional advice to their clients
• Control over the destiny of their practice in terms of its Licencing
• Control over their value proposition and building the value of their practice”
He added that, “The recent announcements from ANZ reinforces the that a large number of practices have been on a journey of licensees and/or parent organisations that is out of their control – and this will almost always impact on the above crucial areas.
There are very few licensees with an ownership structure that offers a practice the chance to achieve the objectives noted above – without having to commit the time, take the risk and have the distraction of having their own licence.” “Interestingly only last week we had a senior executive from one of the major players who made the observation that there are very few natural homes for these sort of practices.”
“When I started working with AdviceIQ, one of the attractions was its unique model which provides every practice an equal seat at the table,” said Mr Harding-Davis. Since then market developments have only reinforced that.” That equal seat for each practice – and the small and exclusive number of practices -ensures that the decisions taken about the licensee and its business are under the control of the partner firms. It also ensures that the group has a high quality evidenced by a zero claims history.
“I absolutely believe the next five years will see the birth of the profession that financial advice deserves to be, and will be a truly exciting and rewarding period,” Paul added. “I think we are starting to see moves by practices to new ownership models that reflect their desire for more control over their professional destiny.” I look forward to seeing more innovative models such as this one in the market.
