Colin Williams, founder of Wealth Data, said the latest adviser figures show that the number of accountants offering limited SMSF advice continues to fall.
“The number of advisers giving general financial advice is growing. Although the total number of advisers this year has dropped by 79, this decline is mainly due to advisers offering only limited SMSF advice, mostly accountants who don’t provide full investment advice,” Williams said.
“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.”
He added that numbers for this limited advice group keep falling, down by 143 this year.
“I think every adviser would say they are struggling a bit with all the legislation and what is required because there are a lot of grey areas,” Williams told SMSF Adviser.
“But this limited or restricted advice sector is on its knees. It’s not quite dead yet, but it’s on life support.”
Williams suggested that by the end of this calendar year, there will be significantly fewer accountants who provide limited advice because, to keep practising as a financial adviser from 1 January 2026, they will not only need financial planning qualifications, but also demonstrate 10 years as a financial adviser.
“The vast majority of these advisers don’t have the 10 years, and while they are generally very well qualified – to be an accountant, you need pretty good qualifications – many of them wouldn’t fit the criteria of being a financial planner.”
“I think they’re going to bail and by the end of this coming year, I’m sure there’ll be a few left, but it’s going to be very small.”
The SMSF Association and the joint bodies, including the Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand and Chartered Professionals Accountants, have for many years been advocating for the limited advice model to be reviewed to fill the advice gap that the growing number of retirees are facing.
In February 2023, following the release of the Quality Advice Review, then-SMSFA chief executive John Maroney stated that the accountants’ limited advice model is a dying model.
“Its current framework prohibits most accountants from giving advice, despite the tailored limited licence model. As accountants continue to exit licensing, this model will disappear completely and, with it, essential advice services,” he said.
“An alternative model is needed as a priority. It should address both the advice gap needs of clients and the conflict between the provision of a tax agent service and financial advice.”
He said “accountants have been left in the cold” in the QAR despite the fact that there is a ready pool of specialists ideally placed to fill the crucial advice gap.
“Successive sector reforms have sought to treat the whole advice ecosystem as one and the same,” he said.
“The reality is that it is not a single basket of goods. It is a complex system with a variety of stakeholders and service providers. In the context of improving access to quality advice, we would have liked to see a greater focus on the role accountants can play, particularly in the SMSF advice space.”
Williams said that as the SMSF sector has become more “mainstream”, people are looking for alternatives, and with the rise in digital platforms and the trend to try to manage their own funds, the limited advice model is suffering.
“If you look at the sector as a whole, there is $4 trillion and SMSF has about 25 per cent of that market, which is a big market,” he said.
“There are a lot of very well-qualified financial advisers who may well come from an accounting background and who can provide the whole package. They can work with an accountant, or an accountant may refer clients on,” he said.
“There are a lot of retirees who treat managing their SMSFs like a part-time job. There’s obviously an interest in doing something like this, and maybe from time to time, leaning on advisers for support.”
