The survival of a financial adviser in Australia

You could have been talking about my business, it's the same scenario for me. A Sole Trader single adviser who desperately wants to keep helping clients. It is becoming increasingly difficult financially to keep serving clients, but the rewards are there once the dust settles.

Feeling your pain. I never truly understood the depth of mental health and anxiety until the last 2 years being in this industry. I keep getting told....hold on it will get better but hard to see how it is supposed to get better when every corner we beaten down with a stick.

That pretty much sums it up, Ronald. I've been doing this for over 30 years and your list is still my list, there's no escape. I would think if the powers that be had the intention of eliminating a profession completely without making known that this was the agenda, they could not have done it better. As for us....same as you. Our clients are what keeps us going. Maybe that's the mark of a true profession after all.

I would give anything to be able to leave this industry and this country. Once I untie myself out of this financial knot I will be exiting the industry and taking my human capital abroad and immigrating. This country has lost the right to tax my income after what they have put me through and I will be voting with my feet.

I come from a family of hard working immigrants, who gave up everything to be here. Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would be systematically and arbitrarily targeted by our own government in a place like Australia, simply on the basis of occupation.

We have for all intents and purposes been turned into a form of second class citizen, who plays by a different set of rules to the rest of society. It is abundantly clear now that there is a deliberate policy of trying to exterminate as many as possible in the shortest period of time. This policy is executed is under the veil of improving standards, which they use as a cloak to justify any form of oppression they desire.

The rest of society has no idea how the endless destruction of our livelihood plays out every day because it is so stealth and designed to constrict you, it's a policy of attrition designed to slowly suffocate you out of existence so that nobody will even notice.

Someone in government and the bureaucracy need to hit the pause button and ask for the Cost Benefit Analysis of this relentless reform campaign. Many average Australians will be worse off, no longer able to afford a relationship with a financial adviser.

The theory is that we should be purely 'Advisers' and paid purely for providing advice.

In a perfect world, this could be a reality, but the fact is that financial product providers are reliant on financial advisers to distribute (dare I say Sell?) their products; especially since they no longer have in-house salespeople (aka 'agents'). And yet - with the exception of life insurance - they are prohibited from paying 'distributors' for selling (oops, there's that dirty word again!) their products! The fact is - and the evidence abounds - that the vast majority of everyday Australians don't want to be charged a fee for buying financial products, but are perfectly happy with the seller - sorry, Adviser - being paid a commission, not inappropriately by the product provider. No wonder the industry - product providers and 'advisers' - are in a mess! Maybe the answer lies in the past; it certainly doesn't lie in the present.

Hear hear, Roy Marin,

Shame on successive governments.

And their ASIC cohorts.

And particularly the so-called Adviser representatives, FPA and AFA (once staffed by volunteer practitioners who truly represented the interests of members, and not their self-interests).

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Laissez-nous faire.

Wow, there you have it.............nailed the changes, the distress, the uncaring ignorant ( even if well meaning - to give them the benefit of the doubt....FORGIVE THEM LORD FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO), the jungle we have to struggle thru as cost seriously go up and in some cases income comes down ( if the arrangement between the adviser and the institution - called a trail is self righteously ripped away) .

Wholeheartedly agree will all comments listed above

You are all spot on, what we have is a Coalition Government wanting to please their Banking mates with eliminating Adviser numbers to justify implementing digital advice. We now need to threaten their jobs with targeting marginal seats, IT IS THE ONLY TIME they will listen....more information shortly.

Ronald - everything you describe applies in a duplicate way for me. I'm continuing only because my clients and future clients need me. It's becoming very much more costly to keep going - but I will keep going.

Extremely and succinctly put

I think the article is a very good article but find it interesting that it appears that we have all been "conditioned" by the media. This article refers to a Royal commission into the state of financial planning in Australia. It wasn't, it was a Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry

Banking was hardly even tackled. And the Royal Commission didn't even give heed to the examples of banks pulling credit on businesses that were completely up to date on their payments and with a clear credit history. Industry Super funds were given a free ride. The financial services industry management was told to not do bad stuff again, and then handed the keys to client accounts forever, with no restrictions. You'd have to try hard to convince me the enquiry was anything other than an intentional prosecution against financial advisers.

An excellent overview by Ronald and he sums it up precisely. After 36 years, I'm now change fatigued and these constant shifts in the goal posts have hammered my belief in a career I once loved. Numerous additional qualifications have meant little in my endeavours to better understand & serve my clients interests. For these, I receive NO recognition. I love my career &, like many of you, achieving results that place my clients in a much better financial position has been my greatest pleasure. The Boffins and Pollies seem to forget that "there is no employee without an employer".

Likewise; without an adviser, there is little or no consumer self-reliant financial future. This means a massive lean by the general population back onto our somewhat strained social services system. How will the aging population really stand to fend for their own retirement without the assistance of an adviser to help guide them and assist in prolonging their savings? Rising costs and time demands in areas outside of advising on an adviser are destroying the notion of "affordable advice. Take note Pollies and Boffins, the industry is crumbling under some of these unnecessary changes and additional costs.

I congratulate those who have robustly destroyed businesses through the weight of massive costs and a true lack of consultative thought in their endeavours. At the end of the day, realise - you can't legislate against dishonesty so does it not make more sense to address the issue of "punishment for wrongdoing?" I agree we need a code of ethics which must be adhered to and policed, and there must be massive punishment for those who don't comply with the regulations however, so far as the fees are concerned - is it not the consumer who needs to be happy with how the choose to pay for a service?? At the end of it all, I for one am walking away come the end of the year and taking my 36 years of knowledge with me. Enough is enough!

Unfortunately times have changed, and whilst we feel sorry for the Ronald Prataps of this world, the market and client expectations have moved. It is no longer acceptable to be paid quite lucrative trail commissions and fees for little or no service. It is no longer acceptable to have vertically integrated models that hide the true cost from clients and potentially influence advisers into recommending a product not in their best interest. Advisers now need to build a professional practice that provides unbiased and comprehensive advice and service for an agreed fee.

And if you cannot educate yourself, get better, or innovate, then you will join the exodus of advisers to Real Estate and Uber driving!

THOMAS EDISON....

The market and client expectations have moved on....have they and who says and which "market" or "markets"?

Lucrative commissions for little to no service...... who says "lucrative" and how do you know there is no service?

Why is it not acceptable to have a vertically integrated model .... hides the true cost from clients?.... you could also say supported the advice process so that those who were of limited means got good affordable advice (FOFA?)

Potentially products not in the clients best interests - got any stats to back this up ?

Advisers build a business.... and what should their fees be, pray tell ?

Last paragraph oozes empathy..... are you a lawyer or an industry fund rep.?

Did you read in the Fin Review last week that the government is thinking of bringing in overseas advisers to fill the gap recently created as folk leave the industry?

THOMAS EDISON

You sound like you have little understanding about how advice is delivered and what services are actually provided.

You have obviously failed to educate yourself and you have little empathy with Australians that lack the capacity to pay high fees for financial advice.

We need less people like you and more people like Ronald, because he cares about his clients and you are all about the money.

William Mills

I once had pride in my industry and the standard of advice I provided my client's. Now I am forced to cull low account balance client's and only take on high net worth individuals and charge for every second of my time to eke out a living.

I now threaten my children that, if they don't succeed at school and university, they may end up as financial planners.

It is a horror story! Too bad to stay but too old to leave!

Let me just say firstly as an ex adviser who saw the writing on the wall six years ago and was fortunate to be able to retire, the comment by "Thomas Edison" which I presume is a nom de plume is highly offensive to all professional advisers.

It has drawn the response it deserved. Most of us know that the profession has been battered under the guise of "bad behaviour" by the few but everyone has

had to cop the hammering.

The Royal Commission was a disgrace in that it didn't get to the real problems, mainly within the big institutions and industry super funds.

With some common sense rules and regulations and policing of bad behaviour by a lazy ASIC there would have been no need for the over kill in compliance etc.

As I said, I was in a fortunate position to be able to exit the industry after 25 years with NO complaints from my dear clients so my sympathies now go out to all hard working advisers trying to assist their fellow Australians.

"Thomas Edison" has all the empathy of the hounds hunting the fox. What an insult to hardworking advisers who did the right thing for their clients over many years but are now forced to pull the pin. Ronald articulated it very well, particularly re the vested interest groups which are dismantling our businesses, and effectively doing the same thing to an industry which has served our country very well for over 150 years.

Oi! Thomas Edison...

It amazes me I didn't realise this weeks, even months ago (with all the BS trolling comments you make under various titles) but who the hell do you think you are anyway to be telling advisers what they can and can't earn?

Despite what you think, you have NO idea whatsoever about the amount of work we have to do for a client now so whatever enormous amounts of money we earn (yeah....right, I wish!) it represents every single cent we deserve so bash up that up your socialist, public-service, PAYG mindset!

Thank you for your comment Thomas Edison. It looks like you completely missed the point of my article although thank you for trying. Thank you to everyone else for their kind comments and support. I hope you all get through this difficult period and come out stronger than ever.