Macquarie licensee closure ‘disappointing’

Macquarie has announced it will shut down its Risk Advice Specialists (RAS) business, with authorised representatives describing the decision as “disappointing”.

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by Scott Hodder - March 23, 2015 0 comments

On Friday, ifa sister title Risk Adviser reported that a Macquarie spokesperson has confirmed the bank will close its RAS subsidiary, a licensee established in 2011.

Speaking to ifa on condition of anonymity, one of the authorised reps said the decision was “disappointing” and has left a number of advisers “rushing” to find a new dealer group.

Another adviser explained that the decision follows the announcement that one of the larger RAS member firms had decided to switch licensees, which resulted in Macquarie seeing no value in continuing the business.

“They thought ‘well, we have only got a few other advisers [and] the costs were probably outweighing the benefit’ is my understanding, so they decided to shut it down,” they said.

However, RAS authorised rep Jordan Vaka of Tangram Financial Services told ifa the decision by the parent company was not surprising.

“The decision seems to have been made very suddenly, but it wasn’t entirely surprising,” Mr Vaka said, adding that he believes Macquarie closed down the dealer group due to its not attracting the number of advisers needed to keep it open.

“They hadn’t achieved the scale I think a dealer group needs to in this day and age, so I don’t think it got the number of advisers it needed,” Mr Vaka said. “That is the indication that we have been given.”