Having completed a pilot of its financial planning offering at the end of June with 11 advice franchises on board, the group’s advice arm has now grown to 16 franchises with 18 authorised representatives, Mortgage Choice Financial Planning general manager Tania Milnes told InvestorDaily.
The group is hoping to have another eight to 10 advisers on board by Christmas, with opportunities in every state, she added.
Ms Milnes said feedback from both advisers and brokers had been positive, with practitioners from both camps receptive to the joint venture-type model.
“We’ve had 25 per cent of the [mortgage broking] network say they’re interested in taking on a financial planning franchise,” she said.
“What they’ve seen over the course of the last 12 to 15 months that we’ve been operational [is] the success of our financial planning franchises and they’ve been hearing great things in terms of success stories from the customers, and they can see how this is adding value both to customers and to their business as well. So there’s definitely interest out there in the network in finding the right person to partner up with to help those customers.”
Ms Milnes said part of the appeal relates to how the model is structured, with practitioners to each remain specialists in their area.
“The brokers don’t get involved in financial planning advice and the planners don’t get credit-based advice. The customers like that they can deal with experts in their own area but all under the same roof,” she said.
“It’s an easy transition for the customer to make through to the adviser; they don’t have to tell their story again; they don’t have to give their information again because they already have a relationship with the brand.
“They’re finding it takes a lot of the stress and the anxiety out of the whole transition from the broker through to the adviser.”
Ms Milnes said the group had reined in plans to increasingly market the advice offering to consumers because demand from existing customers had proved so strong advisers are already “at or near capacity”. The group remains on track to have 60 planning franchisees by the end of the 2015 financial year, she added.
