According to HFS Consulting’s data this week (from ASIC’s Financial Planners Perth), around 79% of financial planners registered under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) are male.
However, this statistic only accounts for about 90% of the adviser cohort. Identifying the genders of the remaining 10% of planners is still unachievable since the information registered on the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) is lacking as of now.
This insight lands on top of the week, experiencing another net loss (45 adviser roles) across the industry. Moreover, the largest financial planning group in Australia, AMP Financial Planning, had their total adviser number drop to below 900.
Additionally, specific data from the industry’s smallest end (one that only has one to two advisers) indicates that there are currently 142 licensees that lack advisers, even though they started a year with either one of these two advisers.
Looking on the positive side, 82 licensees in the smallest market segment participated in operations during the year. Colin Williams, the director of HFS, stated that five licensees had zero advisers for the week. Williams believed that this subtle fact is worth investigating as well. On top of that, he said that one licensee had two roles, while the other four had only one role each.
The director also added that they noticed two new licensees end up with one adviser each - Crown Wealth and Lambert Group was under adviser Rowan Keast, Peritia Wealth commenced with adviser Darrin Newport, and VIAFGSA was under Financial Advisers.
Relatively, the mid-year ranking of Money Management’s TOP Financial Planning Groups found this year indicates that the total number of Australian Financial Services Licenses (AFSL) holders over the last five years increased by about 2,100 in 2020 (from the former 1,200 in 2015). Furthermore, the percentage of groups that had two to ten active planners went up from 46% to 51% in 2018.
