The new financial services regime has seen a rise in different adviser group structures, and one group has set up a ‘two-firm’ system to give advisers the option of getting compliance support, or to join under their license as an authorised body.
Commenting on the structure of her group, FAP Services founder Cecilia Farrow said that it specialises primarily in helping licensed advisers keep their compliance strong and up to date - however, it also owns a licensed entity that authorised bodies can join, and this takes the licensing burden away from the individual adviser.
“In terms of how we work, we actually have two models,” Farrow explained.
“FAP Services itself is not a license holder, and it exists purely to support businesses that hold a FAP license in their own right. But we have another entity which is fully owned by FAP Services called Thrive Advice Limited, and that entity does hold a FAP license.”
“Two of our members currently operate as authorised bodies underneath that license, and we’re very pleased that we’re able to do that,” she said.
“However, we ourselves do not plan to have advisers as part of our licence. They’ll either be members of our organisation and we’ll support them to meet their own license obligations, as well as with coaching, mentoring, training and business development and marketing support, or they’ll operate under an ‘authorised body’ transitional license through Thrive Advice Limited.”
FAP Services specialises in risk advice, but it currently has members from across the financial adviser space. Farrow noted that some members only had a risk advice division within their broader group, and that division benefits from the support that FAP Services offers.
“All of our members hold a license in life and personal risk advice, but three of our members are actually general insurance firms that have a life risk division,” Farrow said.
“So the brokerage itself might not be a member, but their life risk division that actually utilises the services that we support them with is.”
“But the firms we work with don’t exclusively have to be in the life risk space,” she added.
“They could be a financial planner, a fire and general business or a mortgage business with a life risk component. We’re a perfect fit for a lot of those businesses, because we give them the capability to leverage the relationships they have with their small business clients, and do that in a way that is highly professional and compliant.”
