MenuThe Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) has already achieved over 8,700 membership renewals, with more to come, says FAAA chief executive officer Sarah Abood.
“The end of the financial year is the first big milestone for membership. This year it was the critical date for windup of the AFA, and many of our members prefer to pay in the previous financial year in any case, for tax reasons.
“By 30 June 2023, over 8,700 members, including over 80 per cent of eligible practitioner members, had renewed across both organisations.
“That such a large percentage of advisers have transferred or renewed their membership is a real vote of confidence in the newly formed FAAA,” she says. “We are also seeing a number of reinstatement and new membership applications coming through.”
The FAAA shared some more detail on the numbers, with AFA heritage members numbering 2,489 at the start of the renewal process across all categories. In total, 1,563 had transferred to the FAAA as at the end of June, with 146 advising that they don’t plan to transfer. The remainder includes duplicate members, members who have started the process but not yet completed it, and members who haven’t responded yet.
As the AFA has officially wound up as of 30 June, those AFA members who have not transferred are no longer a member of any professional body and will not be receiving any membership services.
Ms Abood says, “We hear every day from AFA members who need some help in completing the move to a new portal, and some others who have been on leave. We will continue the offer to transfer and retain the membership start date for AFA members, on a similar basis as FPA heritage members, with a reminder that a late fee applies for renewals after 15 July.”
The FAAA also shared more detail on the numbers for FPA heritage members. There were 9,693 FPA members in total eligible to renew. 6,377 practitioners and another 761 non- practitioners have already renewed, for a total of 7,138. At the same time last year, only 6,876 FPA members had renewed, and 6,436 in the year before – so numbers are running well ahead of previous years.
“We encourage all members to renew as soon as possible. The more members we have, the more strength we have to create better outcomes for the financial advice profession.
“This is particularly important in advocacy, where there are plenty of issues on the FAAA agenda: including the unreasonable hike in the ASIC industry levy, the continuing
consultation with the Government on implementing the recommendations of the Quality of Advice Review, the legislation of the experienced pathway and many more.
“We are also very focused on re-growing our profession, with major campaigns highlighting financial advice as a great career choice planned for later this financial year.
“Having a unified voice for the profession, representing the majority of financial advisers in the country, gives us a greater chance of achieving the changes our members are looking for,” Ms Abood says.
