He said the increasing compliance burden, a loss of revenue in the form of commissions or rebates, a drop in practice valuations, and the stress of meeting new educational requirements contributed to the situation in Australia.
“We last saw adviser sentiment this low in 2010 following the global financial crash and it makes it very hard to grow the industry and encourage new entrants to join because advisers feel under constant threat,” he said.
“There are about 10% fewer advice clients than five years ago, which has created fee pressure for advisers. As a result, advice has become extremely expensive even by Australian terms.