sydney insignia financial is hoping to make the most of changes to australias pension system by focusing on around one million of its unadvised fund members and thinks it could have a competitive advantage in retirement planning the australian financial services company on thursday announced a plan to spin off its selfemployed financial advisers into a standalone business with the working name of advice services co insignia would initially hold a majority stake which it said would be reduced over time with advisers having the option of taking equity renato mota insignias chief executive said the new business which the company expects to be profitable in its second year would see the advice units growth prospects improve if done in partnership with advisers we would rather share the growth and actually have an organization that is incentivized to grow rather than trying to hold 100 of something he told the wall street journal were saying that advisers themselves will have greater input into the strategy and direction of the licensee it could be representation on the board or it could be advisory councils but there will be greater influence from the advisers and alignment to their needs citi analyst nigel pittaway said that advisers will clearly need to believe in sustainable profits to be encouraged to invest in the business insignias advice business is currently made up of 686 selfemployed licensees who will move to asc 242 employed advisers in its professional services advice business and 485 selflicensed advisers the new advice structure will allow insignia to focus on expanding the provision of advice through superannuation as well its employed advisers businesses mota said with upcoming changes that may allow australias pension funds to provide more financial advice and rules that require funds to develop retirement planning strategies for their members there was an opportunity for further investment as the scope of what funds are allowed to do is widened we have approximately one million members who are unadvised and there is a tremendous opportunity to do more on behalf of those members and help them in ways that are quite different to holistic advice said mota with respect to retirement planning mota said that insignia was not focused solely on providing specific products but sees it as the combination of the right product and the right conversation where we see the gap at the moment is the relationship aspect…there is a plethora of product out there all of which we think are high quality but the question is how to bring them together he said for those who do it well it becomes a competitive advantage insignias restructuring comes as the company enters the final stage of its plan to integrate mlc wealth which it bought in 2021