One in Four Advisers in Australia Without Association Membership

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Almost a quarter of the remaining 19,000 advisers in Australia do not belong to any adviser associations.

This is one of the key findings released by Wealth Data in its latest weekly analysis of financial adviser movements using data taken from ASIC’s Financial Adviser register.

Charts released by Wealth Data reveal that some 14,776 adviser roles (76.6%) are listed as being a member of an association, notwithstanding that some advisers may well belong to more than one organisation.*

Colin Williams.

Wealth Data’s Colin Williams says in his report the FPA remains the largest group with 7,716 current adviser roles or 40% of all roles listed on the ASIC FAR noted as being a member.

The AFA has 2,292 roles or 11.9%, and Williams says it remains strong across some key licensees.

In his commentary he says the number of advisers that are members of the two big associations “…indicates that there is much to do to convince more advisers to join.”

Wealth Data’s Membership of Associations chart shows that of the seven organisations in the analysis, the two smallest listed are AIOFP with 187 members listed on the FAR (0.97%) and the Stockbrokers and Financial Advisers Association with 408 members listed (2.1%).

Williams adds that it’s important to state that not all members of associations are current advisers. He says his firm relies on the data in the ASIC FAR to collate the numbers, which is only as accurate as the data which has been provided to ASIC via the licensees.

“The numbers do indicate that there is a diverse range of financial advisers who feel their needs are best served by one association over another,” he writes.

19,299 total adviser roles
Association Current Adviser Memberships Association Rate %
FPA 7,716 39.98%
AFA 2,292 11.88%
AIOFP 187 0.97%
SAFAA 408 2.11%
CA ANZ 1,543 8.00%
CPA 1,457 7.55%
SMSF Association 1,173 6.08%
Totals 14,776 76.57%

Data courtesy of Wealth Data

Williams notes that at a peer group level, superannuation fund advisers are loyal to the FPA with 65% membership in this category and some licensees over 90%.

The FPA also has 49% of all adviser roles linked to the financial planning peer group with a large number of licensees with over 50% membership.

He states too that the AFA has 18% of all financial planning peer group roles but falls away in the other peer groups to 6% or less. The AFA has two licensees with more than 50% membership followed by some notable groups with more than 40% membership.

*Williams tells Riskinfo it’s challenging to determine how many crossover memberships exist. He provided the following table of advisers by peer group that have at least one membership listed against their name.

Courtesy of Wealth Data.