Independent financial advice: Why it’s important and how to find it

What were the main reasons you became an independent financial adviser?

Peter Humble, Rise Wealth

A realisation that the approved product list was being, for want of a better word, rigged. So the deliberate manipulation of products to steer advice in one direction or another to suit the broader objectives of the particular group that I was formerly employed with. And for me that was the day I came home and said, “We need to leave.”

Dennis Maddern, Maddern Financial Advisers

We need to not be conflicted. I mean, I think law, medicine and engineering, accounting, even, all of them are without fear nor favour. They’re there to service the client. And there is no conflicted remuneration structures, there’s no incentives, there’s no trips to the Grand Prix and trips to the tennis and these soft dollar things.

Matthew Ross, Roskow Independent Advisory

I didn’t have the confidence to give advice under the conflicted model, so I was holding back. And then I was working for a firm that was about to promote me to be an adviser, and I realised I couldn’t work there. They didn’t actually let me pass probation. I was thinking too differently.

Michael Radalj, Your Private Advisers

I basically have a high ethical approach to what I do, and I really do want to do the best for clients in any circumstance. And I want to be seen to be doing the best for clients in any circumstances.

Daniel McGregor, Wealth Train

To remove the conflicts between advice and product had been a constant source of frustration for me, waiting for the big businesses within the industry to find that path themselves, and they just seemed incapable of doing it.

Neil Salkow, Roskow Independent Advisory

I’d recognised the way that the industry was, and saw from working with other firms how they did it. And I just felt the conflicts, just didn’t sit well with me in terms of even just the whole business model is around pushing product. And so focused and centred around product. Even when there was strategy talked about, it still ended up delivering product as the solution.

And for me it didn’t make sense, I really wanted a divide between strategy and product. So I came up with doing strategy analysis for clients, pure strategy, no product at all. And obviously when you do that, you have to charge a fee.

Joe Stephan, Stephan Independent Advisory

We’ve always looked at how would we like to be treated if we were clients, if we were consumers. And we’ve always felt that our business was structured in a way which was targeted towards that. And for a long time we were unaware that this was potentially an option. And so as our awareness grew, we felt that we were doing all the things anyway. So the reality was it was a label. In our hearts we were always independent anyway.

Rick Horvat, Horvat Financial Advisers

We were sick of telling someone else’s story, to be honest. And no one else’s story matched up with our story. So under an MLC license or under another person’s license or under product or whatever it was, it just never felt right.

Deborah Lin, Liquidity Independent Advisers

There was always a better way of doing things. I was frustrated at with what I couldn’t advise on by my licensee. And I wanted to be able to focus on the client and give them the best possible advice without any restrictions.

How does it feel now since becoming independent?

Deborah Lin, Liquidity Independent Advisers

It’s been great. So that restriction and the control’s been lifted, and it allows me the freedom to give the best advice that I possibly can.

Dennis Maddern, Maddern Financial Advisers

I think it’s a feeling of just cleanliness. It’s just clean. There’s no need to hide anything. You can put your financial services guide out, and it can be scrutineered by the finest Queens Council there is. There is nothing to hide.

Matthew Ross, Roskow Independent Advisory

The short answer is options for clients. So we say it to clients when we first meet with them, that being independent means all the things such as no asset-based fees and no alignment to a product provider.

But the most important thing is being in a position to explain to the clients all the options, not having a vested interest in any particular one. So we’re agnostic about the option. Our job is to talk about the pros and cons and help the client choose the one that’s right for them. And as I’ve said a lot of times in the past, I don’t believe advice can be given any other way.

Phil Thompson, Rise Financial

The way we can provide advice when you’re an independent, it’s purely liberating, as in it just feels right. You’re there to help people, and you have no barriers, there’s no conflicts of interest that will taint any of the advice. So you can simply look at everything on their merits, you understand where the client’s at, understand where they’re going, help them understand the pieces together.

Joe Stephan, Stephan Independent Advisory

I would say, with all the noise that’s going on in the marketplace at the moment with the Royal Commission and the findings and the FASEA reforms and all of it, the reality of it is that we felt because of our decisions that we’ve made to work in our clients’ best interests, that we haven’t needed to really do too much, all too much in our business, to change things as a result of any of the recommendations.

Mick Steffan, Independent Advisers WA

It is a relief to be independent. What it really means is that one, I can sleep well at home knowing that I do absolutely the right thing without any conflicts whatsoever. And two, the type of clients that come in are much more relaxed. It’s not more about products or strategy, it’s more about this dude has already done the hard yards in order to become independent and has fully committed to that. And so the trust relationships develop much quicker than before when you would be associated, attached to a product or a financial institution.

Daniel McGregor, Wealth Train

Oh, it was a feeling of freedom, because you know that you only then have to focus on what’s best for the client. You’re not being pushed to sell or recommend any particular products. You’re not constrained in the products that you can recommend. So the only thing you’re focusing on is what’s best for the client.

Peter Humble, Rise Wealth

Now, I wish we had done it 10 years ago. I think we tend to put barriers in our way. We tend to tell ourselves that reasons why things won’t work. Yeah, every day this gets easier.

Keith Henderson, Malibu Wealth Advisory

Simplicity, so it just simplifies the conversation. Independence gives you that capacity to get straight to the heart of the matter.

Michael Radalj, Your Private Advisers

So it’s a bit of a no brainer actually. It’s the easiest way to live. It’s a comfortable way. When the clients call or when we call them, it’s an easier conversation, is to tell them what we think about what should be done or whatever it may be, or catch up with where they’re at and what their concerns are, and just to simply address them as best we can.