Accountants offering limited advice continue to shrink

While adviser numbers continue to slowly creep back up, the latest Wealth Data analysis reveals the industry would have reported gains for the year if it weren’t for so many losses in the limited advice space.

As it stands, there are currently 15,395 individuals on the Financial Advisers Register (FAR) following a net gain of 22 for the week ending 14 August, bringing the net change for the 2025 calendar year to -79.

However, Wealth Data founder Colin Williams explained that this decline is “mainly due to advisers offering only limited SMSF advice, mostly accountants who don’t provide full investment advice”.

The limited advice segment has, according to Williams, fallen by 143 this year, and if they were disregarded, the adviser population has actually grown by 64 this year.

“This limited advice model began in 2016 and grew to 2,787 advisers by 2018, but now there are just 339, an 88 per cent drop. Many advisers in this group started their own AFSLs, but 502 AFSLs have closed since then. The largest licensee, SMSF Adviser Network, shrank from 1,083 to 149 advisers,” Williams said.

The week ending 3 July at the end of the financial year saw 71 accounting-limited advisers exit the profession in a single week, which brought the total losses in this sector to 132 for the calendar year-to-date and accounted for 74.5 per cent of losses over 2025.

This finding is also reflected in Adviser Ratings’ 2025 Australian Financial Advice Landscape report, which shows advisers operating under a limited licensee peaked in 2019 when they made up 5 per cent of the profession, but after years of steady decline, they now make up just 0.9 per cent.

Looking at the weekly movements, there was another week of double-digit new entrants, with 14 for the week ending 14 August, meanwhile, one new licensee commenced while another ceased.

Turning to licensee changes, FSSP Financial Services came out on top with a net gain of four advisers, all of whom were changing from different licensees after returning from a break.

Cutcher & Neale Accounting and Financial Services was likewise up by four, all of whom are authorised at BBB Financial Services, which is part of the Cutcher & Neale Group, and Partners Wealth Group gained net three with all switching from Mont Group.

Several licensees were up by two advisers each, including WT Financial Group with both switching from Lifespan, Halpin Wealth Partners that picked up one of the new entrants and another moving from SA Wealth Solutions, and Count which nabbed another two of this week’s new entrants.

Catalpa was up by net two, both of whom switched from Fintegrity Wealth Advisers, while Insight Management Partners gained two who returned to advice after several years away, and Entireti and Akumin gained three advisers, including two new entrants and another switching from Capstone, but another who is yet to be reappointed elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a tail of 26 licensees were up by net one, including Sequoia, Insignia and one new licensee.

On the other side, Mont Group was down by net three advisers, losing all to Partners Wealth Group, and Picture Wealth lost three advisers, none of whom are appointed elsewhere yet but picked up one who returned after a break for a net loss of two.

Australian Administration Services and Kilara Financial Solutions were both down by net two advisers, all of whom are yet to be reappointed. Fintegrity Wealth Advisers was also down by two, losing both to Catalpa.

A short tail of 11 licensees were all down by net one adviser each, including Fitzpatricks, Capstone, and Spark Partnership.