Liz Field, who will head up the trade body set to replace the Association of Professional Financial Advisers, has promised membership fees will “make sense."
On Monday (8 May) Apfa and Wealth Management Association members were asked to give the go-ahead to a merger of the two trade bodies to form the Investment Management and Financial Advice Association.
If members green light the merger of the two organisations, Apfa members have been told they won’t have to pay any extra to be a member of the new trade body until June 2018.
However when asked could they have to pay up more cash next year, Ms Field said membership fees at the WMA are currently charged on a different basis from those charged by Apfa and this would have to be tackled.
For companies with 10 or fewer registered individuals, Apfa charges a company registration fee of £245.00, plus for each adviser up to and including 10 there is a charge of £116.50.
The same applies for companies with more than 10 registered individuals, except for
every adviser over 10 there is an additional charge of £68.00.
WMA fees are based on turnover.
Ms Field said a new membership charging structure would have to be sorted out and this will need to make sense for both sides and be consulted on over the course of next year.
She said a per adviser fee or something in the middle of the two current charging structures – such as a calculation based on a combination of turnover and adviser numbers for organisations that are both wealth managers and intermediaries - would be consulted on.
Ms Field said: “We will have to consult with our members on what works best for them.”
Chris Hannant, who is currently director general of the Association of Professional Financial Advisers and will stay on at Imfa for at least a year as a strategic adviser, said: “It will need to move to a common charging structure.
“This gives current members more of an assurance in the future as to what they will be paying for membership than they have in the past.
“We reviewed our membership charges on a year-to-year basis. There is a commitment now to stability through to 2018.”
emma.hughes@ft.com
