Adviser Ratings founder Angus Woods told ifa that a “huge swathe” of advisers will be attracted to super funds during the next year or two.
“We are seeing a lot more of those sorts of organisations starting to bring on Industry Fund Services, Link Group and all those sorts of groups,” Mr Woods said.
“What we’re going to start seeing is the super funds really morph into where the banks left. And that’s partly because the Baby Boomers are all retiring and they don’t have a post-retiree model for a lot of people.
“They get to the end of their retirement and then they have to go off somewhere like a self-managed super fund. A lot of these funds don’t have the service capability, yes they have intrafund advisers, but not that full comprehensive advice that people are looking for.”
As the larger institutions have taken their exits from wealth, a lot of mid-tier groups have been taking on advisers, Mr Woods reported, and they have gained numbers from consolidations.
Lifespan Financial Planning and Centrepoint Alliance are among the firms he named as receiving advisers. Supporting dealer groups such as Alliance Wealth are also seeing an influx, where “one or two-man bands” that are operating under their own brand and may need help with compliance.
Mr Woods has taken to reporting adviser movements weekly through video updates on his LinkedIn, using AdviserRatings analysis of data from ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register.
His last video update stated that 354 advisers left the industry during the week to 2 July, while 40 switched licensees and three joined the industry.
Around 55 advisers were said to be affected in the VicSuper and First State Super merger that took place during that week.
Meanwhile, industry fund QSuper recently declared it would no longer provide in-house comprehensive advice to members.




The 1 and 2 man bands are subscale and simply transfer their inefficient business model onto the licensee. Licensees who fill their ranks with these business models will do nothing to improve their embedded value or profitability. Moving to Alliance Wealth and Lifespan is just like an old labrador finding an old tree to die under.
BID will work well when assessing the product suitability.. although I’m guessing a “carve out”is on the table!
Yes. that was the game plan all along. Wipe out their bank adviser competition, then fill their space, with the Union Super funds paying intrafund marketing salaries & bonuses to cement their fast growing monopoly. Labor used taxpayers funds for Haynes to wipe out their competitors – nothing more, nothing less. Haynes was a willing pro-Union fund participant. And the FPA is right in bed with these Union super funds. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
So IF you are a professional & ethical financial adviser, who has a major problem with a vertically integrated super fund paying BONUSES without seeking informed consent or annual opt ins from those fund members, I suggest you find a new industry body to represent your professional status. Because Intrafund within Union super funds is simply UNETHICAL.
ASIC where are you? Senator Hume where are you? Do you care for small business or do you want us decimated?
Advice from a super fund is like asking your barber if you need a haircut. It is inherently conflicted and is unlikely to be in the client’s best interest.
How can you legislate that advisers need to act in their clients best interest and then create an environment where it’s more conducive for clients to receive conflicted advice from vertically aligned advisers?
Something very fishy going on.
The FPA is already signing up these Super funds is droves, to obviously replace all those lost Bank advisers. Financial Advice regulation will even more so than ever, be driven by Union Super Funds. These Super funds just love , scaled, general advice and once off upfront advice, and have the numbers to run that model. My prediction is that by 2023 the phase “ongoing advice fees” or “ongoing advice fees deducted from super” will be the equivalent of the word “commission”.
“Intended or unintended consequences? – that is the question” (Not Shakespeare – 2020)
I like pineapples – but fund that the tinned ones taste fundamentally different to the real ones.
Sounds like vertical integration… ohh wait it’s Industry Funds so it wont matter, especially when ASIC has never scrutinised them properly.
no vertical Integration here!
of course we will check to see if better policies are available with other providers!
yes we are working in your best interest!
no we don’t charge for advice , its free!…
nothing to see here..keep moving on…
….and the Eagle has landed…end of game self employed planners
Exactly right eagle…the end game of all this duplicated redtape, is to rid the industry of self employed planners & SME advice businesses. It has next to nothing to do with “best interests” of the client…but the interests of others…FUM accumulators perhaps?