The Financial Advice Association expects the drop in adviser numbers has plateaued but is committed to driving more people to join the profession.
Speaking at the start of the United Association Roadshow in Hobart on Friday, FAAA chief executive said the association wants to work to add to the current 15,865 registered advisers.
“We would like to address this in several ways, and one of the key ways to do this is to increase supply – we need a lot more financial advisers in Australia, we need a lot more,” Abood said.
“We need to remind ourselves just how much has changed in this industry, which has had a huge impact on the way that you do business as the regulatory pendulum has swung around.”
Abood said regulatory changes in the future will only improve the processes financial advisers have to follow as the FAAA works with willing regulators to streamline and transform regulation governing the profession.
“Changes for the future, by in large, will be changes for the better,” she said. “The focus or balance of recognition is shifting, but it certainly won’t be easy, and it helps a lot when you’ve got friends on the journey with you.”
Abood also told the room that the body will strongly advocate to streamline unnecessary complexities that matter to the industry right now, with policy and advocacy matters a key focus.
The association will address some of the contemporary issues facing the profession in recent years, including rebuilding the profession and its reputation, building a professional development pipeline, attracting talent into the sector, working with regulators and taking on an advocacy role as it streamlines policies and procedures.
FAAA chair David Sharpe said the newly-formed professional association will advocate for the interests of financial advisers and their clients across the country.
He explained to the audience that the FAAA has been working behind the scenes to streamline the association to a single constitution and board that will bring together around 12,000 members from the now defunct AFA and FPA.
Additionally, a series of member engagements will kick off in the coming months as the future of the industry and a renewed look at the code of ethics is mapped out by the FAAA.
“Financial advisers have been telling us that now is the time [to] take control of their destiny and maintain our own standards,” he said.
“We want to integrate the members so that we have a grassroots connection with our members and facilitate education and promotion to consumers to make sure that we have clear pathways for members.”
In my submission to treasury, I pushed for a separation of risk advice from Investment advice and appropriate upfront and ongoing education requirements that are fit for purpose.
The FAAA realise that there is a major shortage of Advisers and they state, “the body will strongly advocate to streamline unnecessary complexities that matter to the industry right now, with policy and advocacy matters a key focus.”
Advocacy can be done intelligently, or can be dogma that appeases focus groups and ignores common sense that incorporates the real world of risk and reward.
What we have had to date has led around twelve thousand Advisers to leave the Industry due to overzealous and misdirected advocacy from associations that forgot that they are there to represent their members in a way that allows them to get on with their lives and smooth the passage from turbulent waters.
What we got was a capitulation that enabled the education lobbyists and misdirected bureaucracy to fall into the trap that threw out years of study, so the brave new world of ‘enlightened and newer version’ University qualifications could erase the past, which also erased the futures of twelve thousand advisers, who for the vast majority, were honest, hard working people who did not serve what happened and were effectively thrown on the scrap heap.
If I could put this question to the FAAA.
Considering that the ratio of new entrants to exiting Advisers is a calamity and that there has been no proper analysis done that I have seen, that will stop this from continuing, then what path do you intend to follow to replace the twelve thousand Advisers who are no longer in the Industry?
If your only path is the University qualification designation, then you have failed in your job.
Look at the number of new entrants over the last few years who wanted to specialise in risk / wealth protection and compare that to how many left, then you need to come to the same conclusion I have been making and stating for years, that unless you change course, there will continue to be insufficient risk Advisers, which will exacerbate the premium doubling fiasco that all Australians now face, was totally avoidable and yet, easy to implement appropriate mandates that would have encouraged Advisers to stay and provide sufficient “Risk and Reward” motivations for new people to consider a career path in the risk Advice field,that allowed them to survive while they study was left out of the equation.
I am always amazed that people who have secure, well paid jobs with none of the risks that Advisers need to take to start in this Industry, can tell all and sundry what needs to be done, without taking into consideration that people have bills to pay while being caught up with thousands of hours and thousands of dollars to try and find a way through the maze, which has led us to a flood of exiting advisers and a trickle of new entrants.