A lot has been said and written about the contraction of the financial advice industry.
The Licensee Owners 2020 list (below) is a searchable, point in time (April 2019 – April 2020) picture of the advice industry and it’s ownership, drawing on ASIC’s Financial Advice Register (FAR).
The FAR resource is far from perfect in its composition, so Professional Planner has partnered with CoreData to clean, reorder, rename, reformat and decouple listings to give the industry as clear a picture as possible of the changes in adviser numbers and ownership of advice in the 12 months period.
The advice industry has shrunk significantly in this time and its shape has changed dramatically.
More than 5000 advisers have departed and less than 80 have joined. Many of these advisers have left institutions such as the banks, which have disposed and disrupted their own businesses as the ‘loss-leader’ dealer group model has fallen out of favour with regulators, policy makers and the general public.
The next 12 months and the years ahead will be defining for the advice industry.
To move forward, business models will need to be adapted to meet higher community expectations for advice delivery. Meanwhile the public’s perception of advice needs to be addressed for new talent to be attracted to its ranks and so that advice can be accessed by more Australians.
