SFG looks to put IFAs back in front of clients

Actuate Alliance Services, to be headed by former AMP director of corporate and IFA distribution Dan Powell, aims to provide single-office Australian financial services licensees with business coaching, research services, technical support, sales and marketing help and portfolio and platform solutions.

SFG Australia managing director Tony Fenning said senior practice principals at Shadforth prior to the merger with Snowball were spending as little as 30 per cent of their time in front of clients with the rest on administration and staff management.

However the support service had been able to help bring that back up to around 80 per cent via improved productivity, which he said should be a realistic target for IFAs taking up the service.

“It’s a very significant productivity difference,” he said.

Mr Powell tipped a resurgence in the boutique AFSL area after Future of Financial Advice reforms are bedded down and said there are already “seeds of growth” coming through with advisers looking to break away from larger licensees.

“We’ve seen that multi-office [mid-tier advice] market decline in the number of authorised reps, however at the other side we are seeing the growth of these small AFSLs, people saying ‘we’ve got a vision of where we want to take our business,” he said.

“But they do need that support and that’s where we see ourselves working with them in that area.”

The service will be charged on a fee-only basis in a structure akin to a Foxtel subscruiption, where advisers can choose which parts of the service they want to use and pay only for those, Mr Powell said.