Financial Adviser Insights, April 25, 2025

Adviser Numbers This week - Decreased by (-1), 15,587 to 15,586

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Summary For The Week
Our weekly update was delayed due to ANZAC Day falling on Thursday, coinciding with ASIC’s release of the Financial Adviser Register (FAR) data. It was a relatively quiet week with only 49 advisers affected in some way, the lowest number in a long time.

New entrants were only at one. We expect to see a surge in new entrants over the next few weeks now that the Financial Adviser Exam results have been released - See more details below.

Of note, this is the fourth week in a row that more licensees ceased (gone to zero advisers) than licensees commenced.

Key Adviser Movements This Week:

  • Net change of advisers (-1)

  • Current number of advisers at 15,586

  • Net Change Calendar 2024 YTD (-30)

  • Net Change Financial YTD +31

  • 18 Licensee Owners had net gains of 22 advisers

  • 18 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-21) advisers

  • 1 licensee commenced, 1 recommenced and (-3) ceased

  • 1 New entrant

  • Number of advisers active this week, appointed / resigned: 49.

Growth This Week - Licensee Owners

  • Four licensee owners were up by 2 advisers each:

    • Centrepoint’s Alliance licensee were up by three advisers, picking up two from Millennium 3 and one from Fortnum. They lost one adviser from their Professional Investment Services licensees who have not been appointed elsewhere to date.

    • Industry Super Holdings picking up two advisers from different licensees

    • Wilsons picked up two advisers. Both advisers coming back onto the FAR after a break of more than one year

    • NAB Bank appointed two advisers to its National Australia Bank Limited licensee. We don’t believe the advisers under this licensee provide traditional / holistic personal financial advice.

  • Only 14 licensee owners up by net one each including both new licensees, AAN Wealth and Sequoia.

Losses This Week - Licensee Owners

  • Count Limited down by (-3), losing one adviser each at Count, GPS Wealth and Merit Wealth. Only the Merit Wealth adviser being reappointed and that was at Capstone Financial Planning

  • Viridian down by (-2) advisers, both advisers not being appointed elsewhere to date

  • 16 licensee owners down by net one each including Findex, FSSP (Aware Super), and WT Financial Group.


Financial Adviser Exam Results Updated For March 2024 Results
ASIC released the March 2024 exam results on April 26, 2024. Below are a couple of charts that highlight the results since Aug 2022.

Some key take-outs from the results being:

  • March 2024 had both the highest number of candidates at 298 and candidates passing at 210 since Aug 2022.

  • The number of candidates at 298 was a significant uptick on exams held during 2023. The most sitting one exam in 2023 was 219 in November.

  • It would appear the new exam format, of removing the short answer questions and increasing the number of multiple-choice questions, did not make a significant difference to the pass rates. The pass rate at 70% was similar to all pass rates since the start of 2023, which have fluctuated between 63% and 73%.

  • The bottom chart ‘Total Passed Versus Current Advisers’ highlights that as at the end of March, 3,955 candidates have passed the exam but are not currently practicing as an adviser. This number may shrink over the next weeks, as we tend to find advisers joining the FAR as Provisional Advisers, after passing the exam.

Analysis of Financial Exam Results Aug 2022 to March 2024
Dashboard 8 - Adviser Fast Facts


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Colin Williams

Colin is the founder of Wealth Data. A career spanning 30 years in financial services, mostly in general manager positions and consulting roles with a focus on financial advice.

https://wealthdata.com.au/
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Financial Adviser Insights, April 18, 2024