Industry

The amount of complaints against advisers that reach AFCA has plummeted in the authority’s five years of operation, and it’s not just falling adviser numbers that are contributing to the improvement in consumer satisfaction.

The merged association has added a new core driver to its strategic objectives for the next six years, with growing the profession now a top priority. But the inherent challenges, and past failures, are forcing the FAAA to try new ways of getting more advisers on the books. 

The investment vehicles of wealthy families are internalising asset management and professionalising their investment teams at a rapid rate, according to Citi Private.

Compliance staff have been in high demand for a few years now, but the rise of industry super funds and the private capital sector has created even more demand for talent, both at the top and bottom end of the experience spectrum.

The customer base for US advisers is growing in the same way that it is in Australia. But the more granular trends that are emerging tell an even more interesting story that Australian advisers would do well to heed.

“It isn’t really a surprise,” FAAA chair David Sharpe said, noting that advisers with CFP next to their name go through “blood, sweat and tears” to attain the designation.

After 21 years building up Pitcher Partners’ wealth management division into a $3.6 billion powerhouse, the high-profile adviser will break from the firm to create an advice group focused on servicing HNW clients and their families.

It’s been a tale of two models in advice, with the accountants that provide holistic advice services going one direction and those that provide SMSF advice another. Meanwhile, the pure financial planning business model has remained steady.

The bureau’s financial advice role definition is not up to scratch, the FAAA says, and conflates the role of a financial adviser with an investment adviser. A new setup will help better inform industry, the community, and even potential new advisers about the profession.   

Knowing how much personality to inject into a professional advice veneer is a skill that needs to be learnt by all advisers, but practices also have a role to play in setting up the right systems, processes and cultural settings so that advisers are comfortable being their true self.

If managers present a fund that has a convoluted structure and can’t be described with clarity and transparency, what hope does an adviser have in then explaining it to their clients?

While the minister has remained relatively mute on the obvious issues with the CSLR, he will at least allow the association to discuss the scheme’s flaws with Treasury at some point.