While everyone likes to have a look and see who has gone up and who has gone down it’s a very opaque measure so we need to view the numbers with caution.
The statistics reflect the number of AR ‘firms’ that are part of a network, not the individual number of advisers and so can mask the real number. What the statistics don’t give away is whether that company is a one man band, or whether it is the size of Your Move, a part of First Complete network, which has well over 100 advisers alone.
While it is always a positive sign if a network is growing in numbers, as it shows that the network has an attractive proposition that advisers want to be a part of, it is always worth investigating the figures a little more. Just taking them at face value amy not be helpful, as the figures also don’t reveal how successful or profitable those advisers are, so they don’t reveal how stable a network is.
If you are thinking of changing networks or going to work with one, a better measure would be to look at how financially secure a network is and how strong a company it is backed by, if it is indeed backed at all.
For advisers, what is more relevant is the amount of support that you will receive and how well what the network is offering fits with what you need for you and your business.
Of course if and when we ever have individual registration of mortgage advisers then a much truer picture would be revealed and we would finally get to see the real picture of exactly how many advisers there were in each network. Then the league tables would be a lot more revealing.
Jon Round is LSL Group financial services director
