Aifa posts deficit of nearly £200K
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Aifa has posted an operating deficit of £194,419 for the year to June 30, down from a surplus of £14,919 for 2009/10.
Results published on the Aifa website show that turnover at the trade body is down 12 per cent from £1,853,393 to £1,629,319.
Aifa is currently considering introducing higher fees for networks to bring their contribution more into line with the fees paid by directly authorised firms as part of an ongoing strategic review of the organisation which has already seen it extend its membership to restricted advisers.
Director general Stephen Gay (pictured) said last month the appetite among advisers to fund the trade body was “patchy”, and that Aifa would either need to increase its funding or reduce the scope of what it does.
Aifa’s results show that office costs are up 7 per cent from £281,456 to £300,119, while marketing and distribution spend has been slashed by over half from £90,318 to £38,799.
Over the year Aifa’s total reserves have fallen from minus £47,556 to minus £194,781.
Annual subscriptions have fallen by 14 per cent from £1,393,680 to £1,202,984.
Staff wages for the 15 employees have remained relatively flat at £752,988 while pension costs have fallen 27 per cent from £88,145 to £64,263.
Directors’ pay has been cut by 33 per cent from £205,000 in 2009/10 to £137,310 for 2010/11.
The cost of events and research projects has risen 14 per cent from £290,766 to £332,808.
European costs associated with membership of BIPAR, the European Federation of Insurance Intermediaries, have more than doubled from £14,552 to £30,129.
Total spending is down by less than 1 per cent at £1,824,175, compared to £1,838,859 the previous year.
Gay says: “From an economic perspective it has been a challenging year for the advice profession. Aifa is not immune to this. We have found that some members have ceased trading or intend to do so, whilst others have merged. The association reported a loss in the year to June 2011 and has been restructuring this year in order to correct this position and to ensure that it is equipped to represent the interests of our members.”
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Readers' comments (21)
Ancient Wisdom...is a IFA in N3 | 7 Nov 2011 11:54 am
cut jobs, not raise fees. too many chiefs, not enough indians.
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Richard Wright | 7 Nov 2011 12:05 pm
What is the point of AIFA apart from being a job creation scheme. What do they actually do for us IFA's , where are they in our hour of need.
There are 30000 plus IFA's, we all have lots of clients, we only need ourselves and 3 or 4 clients to sign a petition and RDR would be properly debated in parliament. What about a big push for a judicial review because im sure there is a case here.Why isnt that no teeth AIFA doing anything along these lines instaed of rolling over, accepting everything, and getting into debt to top it all. ANSWERS PLEASE AIFA.
hour of need ?
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Neil F Liversidge | 7 Nov 2011 12:09 pm
Whilst AIFA certainly does not have enough Indians, it does not have too many Chiefs. Most of us on the Council of AIFA give our time completely for free in addition to paying our subscriptions. The problem is that all too many advisers are happy to benefits from the fruits of our endeavours without contributing themselves, even though the subscription rates are quite small compared with the other costs that people in this business pay more or less gladly. For a two-adviser firm thre annual cost is about the same as a set of tyres for a modest saloon car; not a lot to ask really folks, so sign up and contribute, please!
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huw | 7 Nov 2011 12:11 pm
Quite ironic that the trade association goes broke shortly before the industry it is there to serve. Somewhere along the road we seem to have slipped into a parallel universe.
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stephen | 7 Nov 2011 12:15 pm
You could not make it up, perhaps they needed the services of a good IFA to do some financial planning.
We stopped giving money to this ship of fools long ago.
As Mr Wright correctly points out, where were they in the hour of need of the IFA. Down the pub I expect working out ways to get even more money for doing nothing.
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Anonymous | 7 Nov 2011 12:29 pm
I don't think cutting staff would help - AIFA has always been run on a shoestring - there are no more than about 10 staff anyway.
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Anonymous | 7 Nov 2011 12:41 pm
Poor Stephen Gay. I suspect he has probably been left to deal with the consequences of financial mismanagement carried out before he started at AIFA. If the IFA community wants a strong consistent boice then it must support AIFA.
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Richard Wright | 7 Nov 2011 1:25 pm
Mr. Neil Livesedge, I Really Cant Believe that instead of answering my earlier Question you actually write a comment touting for more members !! If You started fighting for us every IFA in the UK would join AIFA. So I ask again, where are your teeth? Fight for us. Why No Petition to parliament? You only need 100,000 signatures. Why not push for a judicial review. Make IFA's want to join you. An Answer would be most welcome !!
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Rod Leonard | 7 Nov 2011 1:59 pm
Having spent a number of years speaking to Paul Smee, Chris Cummings and Stephan Gay, I stopped my membership because they were doing nothing for the IFA, Neil Livesedge is trying, but unfortunately he has joined a sinking ship brought on by AIFA NOT listening to IFA's who could see precisely what was happening.
The FSA wants rid of IFA's and are not subject to the laws of the land thanks to Labour and the FSMA, I thought the Conservatives would sort it out, but unfortunately when you have people like Mr Hoban around, the destruction of the IFA will continue, and AIFA wont have any Independent members.
Presume they will need to become the Association of Tied none Independent and Bank Advisors. ATNIBA
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Ned Naylor | 7 Nov 2011 2:08 pm
Parties, brewerys failure to organise come to mind
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