A new Investment News NZ study has analysed official data for the first time, providing new details on the layout of the Financial Advice Provider (FAP) world.
The free report published today, uses Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) figures to identify the largest FAPs across several categories.
As at January 2025, the official figures cover almost 1,540 full FAPs (and about 1,110 ‘authorised bodies’), housing more than 9,100 financial advisers.
While the broad outlines of the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act (FSLAA) advice licensing regime were drawn in full in March 2023, the study delves into the interior to sketch out some of the important features.
For example, the first-of-its-kind analysis estimates the relative weights of advice businesses operating across four core activities of general insurance, life insurance, mortgages/debt and investment – albeit acknowledging the product-fluid nature of many FAPs.
“The border between life insurance and debt products is particularly porous with many advisers offering both services as well as KiwiSaver options: however, as best as possible, this study has categorised each FAP on the main area of speciality or historical origin,” the report says.
And the ‘Welcome to FAP-land’ report comes as a long-awaited follow-up to two seminal Investment News NZ reports – the 2013 classic ‘AFA Today’ and the popular 2016 sequel ‘Last of the AFAs’.
Click here for your free copy.