MBIE has released an update on the new licensing regime, in which it said it expected 10 per cent, or about 900, of the current AFA and RFA adviser force to not transition to the new environment.

Adviser coach Tony Vidler said he expected the final number to be higher.

He said, while he would not expect 900 to drop out in two months, it would not be surprising to see 15% or 20% to drop out over the next 18 months.

He said the statistics indicated that there were a lot of advisers aged around 65 or 70 who would not want to pay the price of change to continue to work for a limited time.

Some might opt to become nominated representatives, with fewer obligations, and more could have a role in mentoring, coaching, governance and compliance.

“There’s a lot of experience there to lean on."

Russell Hutchinson, of Chatswood Consulting, agreed 900 was too low an estimate.

But he said it would be possible to lose the bottom 25% of advisers without affecting production much.

Part-time advisers would not have the time or resources to spend on better business systems, he said.

People should not picture a conference and imagine 900 advisers gone from that, he said. Those who would drop out were likely those who were less engaged with the industry, anyway.

Hutchinson said there could be equity issues if female advisers were making use of the industry’s potential for flexible part-time hours to balance other commitments and found they could not continue to do so.

Vidler said advisers deciding on the best approach to take through licensing would have to decide what they wanted to achieve with their own businesses and how much control they wanted to have over their decision-making,

Those in the AFA space already would be well-positioned to cope with the new rules but many RFAs would have a “heck of a lot of work to do”, he said.

Many were good advisers who did not have the business processes set up, he said. But the FMA would want to see they had a good professional practice that would stand up to licensing. “The commercial aspect is a big change.”