Reported revenue earned from retail investment advisers increased by 3 per cent over 2022, as adviser numbers are slowly on the rise, the Financial Conduct Authority has revealed.
The data, which was published as part of the FCA's retail mediation activities return, found that revenue reached £5.5bn in 2022 for retail advisers, an increase on the £5.37bn which was recorded in 2021.
Therefore 2022 is the best year in terms of revenue since the data started being reported in 2016.
This increase was driven by a growth in revenue from fees and charges and commission.
Fees and charges saw increases of £166mn to £4.7bn and £12mn to £713mn respectively.
However, the FCA also revealed that other revenue experienced a fall over 2022, decreasing from £117mn recorded in 2021 to £79.6mn last year.
While commission saw an increase over 2022, it remained below the peak of £843mn that was recorded in 2016.
The data also discovered that reported revenue earned from mortgage broking increased over the past year, with total revenue rising by 12 per cent.
The FCA found that mortgage broking revenue had increased from £1.4bn in 2021 to £1.58bn in 2022, an increase that was again driven by increases in revenue from commissions, fees and charges etc.
For non-investment insurance distribution and mortgage broking, commission remained the primary source of revenue, accounting for 84 per cent and 78 per cent respectively.
Adviser numbers on rise
The FCA said the number of retail investment advisers across all firms rose to 37,381 in 2022, an increase of 707 on the 36,674 posts recorded in 2021.
The reported number of mortgage advisers was also found to have risen, going from 36,211 to 36,411.
However, the number of retail investment adviser firms was found to have decreased over 2022, falling to 5,592 from the 5,657 firms that were recorded in the previous year.
Of the number of firms providing retail investment advice in 2022, 86 per cent of firms provided investment advice while, conversely, 12 per cent of firms provided restricted advice.
The percentage of all firms that provided both restricted and independent advice in 2022 was 1 per cent, this has remained the same as 2021.
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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