Brisbane financial advice firm Ethical Financial Advice left Financial Wisdom in recent weeks and is currently operating under Shartru’s AFSL as an authorised representative.
Having launched in November 2012 as the retail advice arm of boutique fundie Shartru Capital, Shartru Wealth is experiencing considerable “traction” among disgruntled institutionally-aligned advisers and has even had to turn a number of potential recruits away, chief executive Rob Coyte told ifa.
Mr Coyte said that Ethical Financial Advice’s director, Adam Kennedy, was attracted to the dealer group’s “non-conflicted” nature and advice provision philosophy.
“I am an adviser first and foremost myself and we have built the dealer group around the idea of ‘by advisers for advisers’ that want to operate in a certain way,” Mr Coyte said.
“We are not bureaucrats or corporate guys. It’s about finding like-minded advisers to achieve some scale”.
As a former institutionally-aligned financial adviser himself, Mr Coyte said he has personal experience of the downsides of larger dealer groups, particularly the sense that management of these groups “didn’t have my back” in the case of product or fund failure.
“It was obvious that the big licensees didn’t have the skills to deal with a mess,” he said. “The most important thing you want from your licensee is keeping you on track and making sure you’re not doing the wrong thing.
“It’s not the warm or fuzzy stuff, it’s the compliance and the security that the products on the APL are thoroughly researched by independent non-conflicted sources.”
Mr Kennedy has since taken on a compliance management role within the Shartru network, as well as remaining at the helm of Ethical Financial.
Are you in the process of switching dealer groups or considering a move? editor@ifa.com.au
#5 David, it was limited to FinWis ARs and the company paying the higher commission was a Life Insurance company owned by commbank starting with Comm…
When I jumped ship to another licensee, the commission rate for that product provider was 5% less so the proof is in the pudding isn’t it!
[quote name=”Edward”]’D’ day for institutional aligned licensees is coming, and way too late in my opinion. I used to be a FinWis AR and they didn’t like it when I recommended a non-aligned product, made it very hard for me by “fault finding” during compliance reviews. Notwithstanding the fact that the commissions on their aligned insurance products was up to 5% more, there’s a conflict right there![/quote]
Interesting. Was the 5% higher commission ONLY for FinWis AR’s or any licencsee AR who sold their product?
[quote name=”Steve A”][quote name=”Andrew”]Sorry but if you have to put the words ethical, trustworthy or otherwise in the name of your business then you have an insecurity about your perception in the marketplace.
Would you buy a car from “honest Jims used cars”?[/quote]
The fact that they have abandoned CBA may suggest that they are in fact ethical and have been swimming upstream until now.[/quote]
Or …… it could be quite the opposite? Solely from a ‘name’ perspective, I agree with Andrew.
[quote name=”Andrew”]Sorry but if you have to put the words ethical, trustworthy or otherwise in the name of your business then you have an insecurity about your perception in the marketplace.
Would you buy a car from “honest Jims used cars”?[/quote]
The fact that they have abandoned CBA may suggest that they are in fact ethical and have been swimming upstream until now.
‘D’ day for institutional aligned licensees is coming, and way too late in my opinion. I used to be a FinWis AR and they didn’t like it when I recommended a non-aligned product, made it very hard for me by “fault finding” during compliance reviews. Notwithstanding the fact that the commissions on their aligned insurance products was up to 5% more, there’s a conflict right there!
Sorry but if you have to put the words ethical, trustworthy or otherwise in the name of your business then you have an insecurity about your perception in the marketplace.
Would you buy a car from “honest Jims used cars”?