Michael had spent twenty-one years as a financial adviser inside a major Australian bank’s wealth division, guiding clients through mortgages, super decisions, and retirement planning with the kind of patience that came from genuinely caring how their story turned out. When the bank restructured its advice arm around a digital advice platform capable of generating automated superannuation and investment recommendations for straightforward clients, Michael’s role was one of many made redundant in the wealth division’s wind-down. What the platform couldn’t do was sit with a couple who’d just been told one of them had a serious illness and help them rethink their entire retirement plan with compassion, or talk a frightened retiree off the ledge during a market downturn. Financial planning is fundamentally about trust and behaviour under stress, and that is exactly where a real adviser earns their keep.

For an experienced adviser, starting an independent financial planning practice is one of the most credible paths back into meaningful, well-paid work — though it comes with genuine regulatory complexity that needs to be taken seriously from day one. This guide covers the licensing landscape, setup steps, realistic costs, and how to build a client base.

What Does It Take to Start a Financial Planning Practice?

Financial planning is one of the most heavily regulated professions covered in this series. To provide personal financial advice in Australia, you must be a “relevant provider” listed on ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register, which requires meeting the education and training standards set out in the Corporations Act — broadly, a relevant approved degree (or equivalent recognised qualifications and study), completion of the required professional year of supervised work, and passing the financial adviser exam administered by ASIC’s approved provider. If you were already practising as an adviser before these standards were introduced, you may hold recognised prior learning, but it’s worth confirming your current standing directly with ASIC or your professional body before assuming you’re exempt from any component.

To actually operate and provide advice, you need to do so under an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) — either your own, which is a substantial undertaking involving demonstrating compliance capability, adequate resources, and professional indemnity insurance, or as an authorised representative of an existing licensee, which is the path most new practice owners take, at least initially. Membership of a professional association such as the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) is common and reinforces ongoing professional standards and continuing education obligations. Beyond the formal requirements, this work demands genuine emotional intelligence, the discipline to always act in the client’s best interests as required by law, and the resilience to guide clients through market volatility without letting your own anxiety show.

Many practice owners also choose to specialise — retirement planning, pre-retiree superannuation strategy, or advice tailored to a specific profession such as medical practitioners or business owners — because financial planning is complex enough that clients respond strongly to an adviser who deeply understands their particular stage of life or industry, rather than a generalist offering. Deciding on this focus early will shape everything from your licensee choice to your marketing and referral strategy.

Setting Up the Business

Register your ABN through the Australian Business Register once your licensing arrangement is confirmed. Most new practice owners start as an authorised representative under an established AFSL — often through a licensee or self-licensing support service that provides compliance infrastructure, approved product lists, and professional indemnity cover — because building your own AFSL from scratch is expensive and complex for a first-time practice owner. Some advisers eventually move to self-licensing once their practice has scale and a strong compliance track record.

Professional indemnity insurance is mandatory and typically arranged through your AFSL or licensee arrangement — confirm exactly what’s covered and whether any gaps need topping up. You’ll need rigorous systems for record-keeping and advice documentation, since the Corporations Act’s best interests duty requires you to demonstrate the reasoning behind every recommendation. Fee disclosure statements, financial services guides, and statements of advice all need to be compliant with current regulatory requirements, and it’s worth investing in proper financial planning software that builds compliance into the advice process rather than trying to manage this manually.

What It Costs to Get Started

Financial planning has meaningful upfront compliance costs, but as an authorised representative these are manageable. Expect: authorisation and licensee fees (structures vary — some charge a flat fee, others take a percentage of revenue, so compare arrangements carefully), FAAA or similar professional association membership ($800–$1,500 a year), financial planning and advice compliance software ($150–$600 a month), professional indemnity insurance (often bundled through your licensee, but budget $2,000–$6,000 a year if arranged independently), a professional website that reflects the trust-based nature of the business ($2,000–$5,000), and ongoing continuing professional development to meet FAAA and ASIC requirements ($1,000–$2,500 a year). A realistic total start-up budget as an authorised representative is $10,000 to $22,000. Pursuing a standalone AFSL from the outset is a much larger financial and compliance undertaking and is rarely the right first step for a new practice owner.

Finding Your First Customers

Your existing professional relationships are the strongest early source of clients — former colleagues, past clients (where compliant and appropriate to reconnect with), and referral partners from your previous employer’s network. Referral partnerships with accountants and mortgage brokers are especially valuable in financial planning, since these professionals regularly encounter clients with financial planning needs and want a trusted specialist to refer them to, often reciprocating with referrals in the other direction. A Google Business Profile helps with searches like “financial planner [suburb],” which tend to have strong commercial intent given the considered nature of the purchase. LinkedIn is genuinely effective for reaching professionals and business owners with educational, compliant content about retirement planning, superannuation strategy, or market volatility management. Seminars or webinars — particularly around major life events like retirement planning or redundancy itself — can be a strong way to build trust with a room full of prospective clients at once, provided the content stays general and compliant rather than tipping into personal advice. Employer-run financial wellness sessions are another under-used channel, since many businesses want to offer staff genuine value around superannuation and retirement planning but don’t have anyone in-house qualified to deliver it.

Common Mistakes First-Time Owners Make

  • Underestimating the compliance burden of documentation and advice records, which is core to meeting the best interests duty and avoiding regulatory action.
  • Rushing into a standalone AFSL before building enough scale and compliance experience as an authorised representative first.
  • Failing to clearly disclose fees and potential conflicts of interest in a way clients genuinely understand, which damages trust even when technically compliant.
  • Neglecting their own business development in the early months, assuming client relationships from a previous employer will transfer automatically without proactive outreach.

Your First 90 Days

Weeks 1–3: confirm your standing on the Financial Advisers Register, finalise your authorisation arrangement with a licensee, and register your ABN once your structure is settled.

Weeks 4–6: set up your financial planning and compliance software, build a professional website that reflects your experience and areas of specialty, and register your Google Business Profile.

Weeks 7–9: reach out to your professional network and reconnect, where appropriate and compliant, with contacts from your prior career. Build referral relationships with two or three accountants or mortgage brokers.

Weeks 10–13: take on your first clients with meticulous documentation from day one, request testimonials and referrals from satisfied clients, and refine your service offering (comprehensive planning, retirement-focused advice, or a specific niche) based on early demand. By day 90, aim to have a small, well-documented client base and a clear compliance rhythm established.

For a sense of how this compares, take a look at our guides to bookkeeping or accounting business, start a legal practice and consulting business.

Watching a digital advice platform absorb the routine parts of a career you spent two decades building is genuinely disorienting, but the trust, empathy, and judgement clients need most — especially when life gets hard — remain entirely, reassuringly human. When you’re ready to build a practice around that trust, GrowOnline can help with the market research, website, and marketing systems to bring the right clients to your door.