For years, discussions about advice quality have relied on complaints, regulatory action, remediation programmes and court decisions.
Those indicators are important, but they primarily tell us where advice has failed. They don't tell us whether the overall quality of financial advice is improving.
The Advice Quality Index was created to answer one question.
Is the quality of Australian financial advice improving?
Drawing on more than 24,614 independently reviewed advice files across more than 200 Australian licensees, the Advice Quality Index measures advice quality using a consistent independent review methodology applied over six years.
Rather than measuring isolated failures, it provides one of Australia's largest independent longitudinal datasets examining how advice quality changes over time.
Advice Quality Research brings together independent research examining how advice quality is changing, what is driving those changes, and what they mean for Australian licensees, Responsible Managers, advisers and boards.
Built on a dataset encompassing more than 24,614 independently reviewed advice files conducted since 2015, each report examines a different aspect of advice quality, governance and professional practice.
Together, they provide one of Australia’s largest independent evidence bases on advice quality.
The inaugural report analyses six financial years of independently reviewed advice from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2026.
The report examines:
Most publicly available measures of advice quality are reactive.
Those indicators are important, but they primarily show where advice has failed. They don’t measure whether the overall quality of financial advice is improving.
The Advice Quality Index fills that gap.
Built on more than 24,614 independently reviewed advice files across 200+ Australian licensees, the Advice Quality Index is one of Australia’s largest independent longitudinal benchmarks of advice quality.
The result is an evidence base that helps licensees, Responsible Managers, advisers and boards understand how advice quality is changing, where capability needs to develop, and where governance efforts should be focused.
What makes the Index different?
Independent
Built on more than 24,614 independently reviewed advice files across 200+ Australian licensees.
Consistent
Every advice file is assessed using a consistent review framework, enabling meaningful comparison over time.
Longitudinal
The Index measures changes in advice quality over six years rather than reporting isolated events.
The Advice Quality Index has been developed for:
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