Women in advice improving, but still low

According to Wealth Data, 23 per cent of all advisers are women, however, the number of new entrants to the industry has shown signs of improvement.

Women comprise 30 per cent of advisers that have joined the industry since 2013 and 32 per cent of current provisional advisers. In comparison, only 23 per cent of advisers that joined between 2003 and 2012 were women.

Looking at the gender split by business model, the highest proportion of female advisers (38 per cent) are in the Accountant - Limited Advice model, which is only a small part of the broader advice sector. Investment advice saw the lowest rate of women at just 17 per cent.

Wealth Data founder Colin Williams said: “March 8, 2023, celebrated International Women’s Day and makes this an opportune time to review the current position of gender balance of financial advisers.”

There was a net gain of 10 advisers for the week ending 9 March, with the total number of advisers now sitting at 15,860.

This week, 72 advisers joined or left licensees and the year-to-date growth is still in the positive, with a net growth of 51 advisers.

“As predicted last week, we saw many of the advisers who ceased last week re-enter the ASIC FAR as they transitioned to new licensees and boost the net gain to +10. Calendar YTD is looking very positive at +51 especially when compared to the same period back in 2022 when it was showing (-642),” Mr Williams said.

Dirigere Advisory ended the week up six advisers, with most coming from Lifesherpa (Money Sherpa). A new licensee commenced with five advisers as a practice split from Hillross.

Jason Valantine Davis - Aavana Financial Solutions and Financial Professional Group both gained two advisers, while there were 23 licensee owners up one adviser, including WT Financial Group, Insignia, Perpetual, Ord Minnett Group and Capstone.

AMP group lost five advisers as part of the aforementioned Hillross practice departure, while FSSSP Financial services (Aware Super) and TAL Dai-Chi (Affinia) were both down two advisers.

Bell Financial Group, Count, and Oreana were among 18 licensee owners down one adviser each.