The race among Australia’s big banks for financial planners is intensifying, keeping demand for advisers high despite volatile financial markets, according to industry recruitment directors.
Derwent Executive managing director Ben Derwent said the nation’s major banks were the most active financial planning recruiters.
“It’s a natural growth corridor for the big banks in that they can cross-sell products to those who have a mortgage or those who have a deposit with the bank,” Derwent said.
“Therefore, you’ve got this captive community of clients – in effect, the Holy Grail – to whom you can sell a suite of financial products.”
ANZ has said it plans to add 50 advisers a year for the next few years, Westpac’s wholly-owned BT Funds Management has said it would add about 140 planners over the next three years, albeit mainly from within its ranks, and Perpetual has said it aims to expand its private wealth business.
Even the McGrath real estate empire’s wholly-owned Oxygen home loan business is advertising for financial planners in an effort to add another service to the mix.
Derwent said some banks were hiring planners to lock in growth, but some were training existing staff.
“What’s happened is there’s been a big redeployment of people within the banks. People who were selling mortgages or loans or other sort of products are being redeployed within the bank to sell financial planning products,” he said.
However, independently-owned Futuro Financial Services was adding planners, managing director Dennis Bashford said.
“We’ll grow quite significantly over the next 12 months,” Bashford said.
As part of its growth, Futuro plans to add about 25 planners over the year, raising its total to about 120. It currently has 95 planners who look after about $2.5 billion in funds under advice.
Derwent said demand for planners in the independent space had slowed as a result of volatile financial markets, but Profusion Group director Alison Loader said demand was just as robust as it had been over the past two years.
“We’re experiencing strong demand for well-qualified planners with a good track record,” Loader said.
“Barring any catastrophic market event, that demand will continue.”
Hays director for Western Australia Jane McNeill said demand was especially robust in the west because of the strong economy and the relatively complex needs of mining workers.
“We could find jobs for 30 financial planners tomorrow in Perth alone,” McNeill said.
All recruitment directors said retention was front and centre, given the bank-led demand for planners’ services.
They said the focal points were remuneration, ongoing training and strong support systems.
Derwent said retention bonuses, or so-called golden handcuffs, featured in some cases.
“I would have thought there would be handcuffs or payments made, given the JBWere transition to NAB from Goldman Sachs. I’m sure there would have been incentives through the Axa/AMP process,” he said.
“At the end of the day, the people are the assets of these firms and retention is probably a pretty important piece.”
