The community spirit really kicked in at the FAAA Congress in Brisbane for PFAN (Pro-bono Financial Advice Network).
“Every year I think it’s the best one, but this year felt the community feeling came through a lot more,” says PFAN chair Nicola Beswick CFP®.
This is the second year that PFAN has had a stand at the FAAA Congress which Nicola said aimed to continuously build awareness of the organisation.
“The objective is to talk to many different people – predominantly advisers and licensees – and that worked really well.
“At Congress in Adelaide, we had interest [in PFAN] but this year we had more people deliberately coming and finding us to ask who we are and what we do.
“We wanted to get people on the [PFAN] register.”
How it works
PFAN has a database of advisers that have registered and PFAN continues to check in to make sure those advisers continue to have capacity to help and meet obligations such as compliance. PFAN collects their information, including the areas and their preferences in terms of what they want to advise on.
When a client comes to PFAN, after the initial screening process, a call out is sent to advisers on the register that meet that client’s needs seeking interest to take on that client.
It’s a bit like a match-making service and PFAN steps in and out of that relationship so it’s like a client-adviser relationship on a pro-bono basis.
“We keep a list of advisers who have taken on a case and then check in four-six weeks later to see how that went. We get feedback and an understanding of what it was like from the adviser’s perspective and at that stage we give them a digital badge recognising their pro-bono service.”
This year through sponsorship from Hub24, Milford Asset Management and Innova Asset Management, PFAN has been able to employ its first paid employee.
There are 145 advisers on the PFAN register across Australia, with 38 new advisers added in 2024. The goal in 2025 is to scale the offering, and to become a registered charity.
So far PFAN has received 73 requests for assistance and has been able to help with 58 of these requests. Some were not eligible for assistance because of their income and the asset threshold which is means tested.
Board members are Shannon Durrant (Secretary), Paul-Harding Davis, Anne McDonnell, Niall McConville, Stephen Knight (Treasurer), Natalie Kleibert (Deputy Chair) and Nicola Beswick (Chair).
Currently, PFAN supports charities concerned with MS, MND and Pancare. Until more advisers join, there are no plans to expand to more charities.
PFAN Board member Niall McConville explains what PFAN means to him here.
Find out more about PFAN.
