Research firm Wealth Data believes that many licensees have not yet removed advisers as a result of not passing the FASEA exam, and says that for many this will also mean closing off their AFSL.
In his latest Weekly Financial Adviser Movement report, Colin Williams notes that the number of advisers decreased by 49 to 17,621, which is more than the 17,200 previously forecast (see: Adviser Numbers Continue to Decline). The firm suspects that reporting of the data is taking time to work through ASIC because of holidays and Covid.
“We also suspect that many licensees, mostly those in the peer group of Accounting – Limited Advice (mainly accountants providing SMSF Advice under a restricted licence) are yet to report.”
Williams says a large number of these are very small licensees “…who will need to remove themselves as the adviser(s) and close the licence which may be more complex than first anticipated.”
He adds that to put this into context, there are 258 ‘one adviser licensees’ and 50 ‘two adviser licensees’ in this peer group “…and they had some of the lowest FASEA pass rates when this data was available.”
As to the key movements for the week, Williams points to:
- Net Change of advisers – down 49.
- 22 Licensee Owners had net gains for 33 advisers
- 46 Licensee Owners had net losses for 81 advisers
- Three new licensees commenced and eight closed
- Two Provisional Advisers commenced
