RIVA Recruitment’s latest Financial Adviser Salary guide has been released, and the effects of COVID-19 on the figures are pretty clear.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many business owners have advised that most new business has been suspended during the pandemic as a result of reduced consumer confidence. Recruitment has stalled as well due to uncertainty around recurring revenues and the fundamental challenge of on-boarding new employees whilst adhering to social distancing measures.
However, not all advice businesses have been equally impacted. In fact, the research shows that businesses with percentage-based fee models have seen more pay cuts and redundancies, along with slower recruitment, than those with flat fee-for-service models.
“[These businesses] have (mostly) retained all employees and with some of these businesses are still recruiting new staff,” RIVA Recruitment founder Fabian Ruggieri explained.
An environment of diminished recruitment has been and will be especially challenging for the large groups of bank advisers who are now looking for opportunities while the big four banks exit advice operations. As Ruggieri noted, many of these advisers have been earning over $130,000 plus bonus, and may have to reset their expectations during this period.
To that end, RIVA’s current benchmark salaries for advice industry professionals are:
- Client services officer (1-4 years’ experience, 1-4 years in role): $50,000-$70,000
- Client services manager (4+ years’ experience, 2+ years in role): $70,000-$90,000
- Paraplanner (1-3 years’ experience, 1-3 years in role): $55,000-$85,000
- Senior paraplanner (3+ years’ experience, 3+ years in role): $85,000-$100,000
- Associate adviser (2-5 years’ experience, 1-3 years in role): $75,000-$90,000
- Financial adviser (2-5 years’ experience, 1-5 years in role): $90,000-$120,000
- Senior financial adviser (10+ years’ experience, 5+ years in role): $120,000-$160,000
It remains to be seen how long it will take before recruitment picks up in the advice industry, but the message seems to be that many advice practices will need to reevaluate many aspects of their business to survive and thrive during this crisis.
