Consumer trust isn’t something to be taken for granted, but reports from the UK, US and here at home are all pointing towards an uplift in trust levels around financial advice, which can only be a welcome development.
There are significant tailwinds behind the financial advice industry at the moment, but some major obstacles are still preventing advice practices from taking advantage of surging demand according to a new study from CFS.
Final tally for FY24 adviser numbers revealed
Despite widespread consternation from government, as well as industry, providers and the public about the declining numbers of qualified advisers, efforts to arrest the slide appear to be going unrewarded.
According to Wealth Data the net change in financial advisers for the 2023/24 financial year amounted to a loss of 205 from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission’s Financial Advice Register.
The figure – a dispiriting one for an industry trying to right itself after 5 years of declining personnel – is somewhat clouded by a typically volatile end-of-financial-year period. The last weeks of the financial year typically involve an elevated number of advisers coming off the registry in a condensed period, either to set up for a change of licensees or avoid liability for the ASIC adviser levy. This is usually followed by a slightly slower regrouping as advisers come back onto the registry under the umbrella of new licensee groups.
After recording a net figure of -81 advisers last week, the final week of June (which actually traversed into July) saw another net amount of -78 advisers affect the registry. So the figure of -205 involved -159 in the final two weeks or so. Aside from this period, the net figure would be a more palatable -46.
Yet the -205 figure for advisers is still a true reflection of the state of the industry in the last year, given that a comparable amount of adviser tend to come back onto the registry after EOFY, albeit at a less hurried rate. “This is a big hit, especially after last week’s loss of 81,” Wealth Data founder Colin Williams said.
The number of registered advisers at the end of the financial year was 15,430.
As an indication of the expected adviser influx, the -78 figure for this week also includes what Williams characterised as a “solid” number of 20 new advisers joining the ranks. This number is expected to climb in the coming weeks.
“We expect that the next week or two will see additional advisers get back onto the ASIC Financial Adviser Register as licensees update their data,” Williams said. “Licensees have up to 30 days to update adviser details.”
In a promising sign for the pipeline of advisers joining the ranks, the Wealth Data EOFY numbers show 20 new entrants joined ASIC’s registry in 2024. In that same span, Williams added, eight new licensees commenced and 4 ceased operations.
