Strateg EYE's Dave Greenslade is predicting industry regulators will increase their oversight of the finance sector this year.

The FMA established a dedicated financial advice team in 2020. It had nine staff in a year ago, currently has a team of 17 and there's plans to increase this to 20.

Greenslade also expects to see more business consolidation this year and warns of a national shortage of skilled financial services staff.

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Two regional events organised by Financial Advice NZ will be going ahead as planned under the government's Red traffic light setting.

The organisation's CEO Katrina Shanks says its regional meetings in Auckland and Christchurch will continue under the new rules.

Its first regional meeting of the year is planned for February 15 in Christchurch and the Auckland event is on February 24.

Last week we asked what levels of life insurance business you expect to write this year.

While the poll still has a week to go the current picture shows that 60% of you anticipate writing more business, 20% indicate they will write less business than last year and a further 20% reckon it will be about the same as 2021.

The poll closes on Monday 31 January.

The Adviser Platform is to hold four adviser roadshows across the country during February to talk about FAP licensing and mental wellbeing with support from insurer AIA NZ.

Ryan Edwards, Managing Director at The Adviser Platform says the roadshows will focus on a combination of wellness, compliance readiness, and address the mental anxiety of licensing.

In Australia, Research firm Wealth Data is expecting the number of advisers operating there to drop by around 1200 to 16,000 by the end of the year.

Writing in his first weekly report for the year, Wealth Data’s Colin Williams says that 2021 was difficult year for advice firms with very few bright spots.

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