Is your advice practice considering changing licensees within the next 12 months?
- No (44%)
- Yes (39%)
- Not sure (8%)
- We've changed in last 12 months (8%)
Recent changes within the financial services industry have generated a climate in which advice practices are reconsidering their licensee choice and making moves to new dealer groups.
We want to know what you are thinking and where your practice is currently positioned. Our latest adviser poll asks:
Is your advice practice considering changing licensees within the next 12 months?
Key events in recent times that have helped to create this climate of change include:
- Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reform proposals
- Industry consolidation
The proposed FoFA reforms appear to have many advice practices questioning their current licensee arrangements, whether they can afford to operate under present circumstances and/or whether they would experience a more favourable service proposition elsewhere. Examples include:
- The perceived heavy administration and financial burdens associated by many advice practices with opt-in proposals
- The removal of most volume bonus-related income streams for new business from 1 July 2012
- The required restructuring of many advice practices from commission-based to fee-based business structures
In addition to FoFA, the industry has also seen significant consolidation over recent times, with the effective disappearance of ING and Aviva from the Australian financial services landscape and the eventual acquisition of AXA by AMP.
AMP’s acquisition of AXA followed an unsuccessful bid by MLC, which was blocked by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Since then, there has developed a sometimes intense lobbying campaign by both organisations to win the hearts and minds of advice practices both within MLC and AMP-owned dealer groups as well as practices operating under other licensee banners.
The outcome of this lobbying has seen AXA/AMP practices switch to MLC licensees and vice versa. We understand this campaign continues and that a number of advice practices are presently considering their options.
Are you also considering your options? Is your present licensee delivering the services and environment you need to successfully build the value of your business? Are there issues other than those mentioned here that are giving you pause to think about alternatives? Have you already made the move?
Let us know what you think…
Add your comment now
3 Comments
Unfortunately many Advisers still look for the silver spoon in their Dealership offer. Hey guys, it just aint there.. its all about a business to business relationship and all stakeholders need to receive the benefits of belonging. If FoFA does nothing else, it will expose the pointy end of the stick and it is not the best end of the stick to be sitting on. For many, as I see it, it will be a day of reckoning for them and their Advice role and the safe haven of an umbilical attached to a dealership may no longer be an option.
Make business decisions for win/win and best of luck post FoFA!!
Is there any point in changing dealer groups? Unless a dealer group is so rigid and tied up in ultra-conservative red tape that they can’t see beyond their front door it makes no sense to change in my view. The achieve-nothing changes thrust upon us will happen wherever we are and changing dealer groups won’t alleviate that.
I CHANGED ONE YEAR AGO.
HADS AN ONGOING BATTLE WITH A LIFE COMPANY OVER A CLAIM AND FOUND NO SUPPORT FROM MY DEALER. A few weeks layer had an approach from another group whom I new most of them lower fees and more contact with other members on a state basis seems to work for me!