The Triple A Advisers Association and risk advice firm Plus4 Insurance Solutions have merged.
Members of Triple A voted last year to wind up its organisation. According to its website, the industry body can trace its history back to 1949 when it was launched as the National Mutual Field Officers Association.
Plus4’s Group General Manager Peter Standish says members of the new organisation – with the working name of the Independent Financial Advisers Association (IFAA) – will have access to a suite of services to support individual adviser businesses.
“Both the Plus 4 and Triple A brands will be discontinued and fall under a revised brand,” he says.
“The IFAA logo is an umbrella transitional name to facilitate the merger, and is not intended as longer-term branding. There is some work to follow around branding to ensure it reflects who we are, what we do, and our target audience.”
“Given that both legacy organisations shared similar objectives and values, there was a compelling case to combine forces to better and more efficiently provide comprehensive support services to adviser businesses,” says Standish.
“This is an exciting time for both organisations, an independent representation owned by advisers for advisers, and we welcome the inevitable interest it will create from other advisers looking for unbiased support for their financial services business.”
Standish says while there could be some confusion by being a non-trading professional body, there is no intention to compete with the likes of Financial Advice NZ.
A General Manager and Administrator will run the new entity, which was created on 1 April. Its board will have representatives from Triple A and Plus4.