Data from the FCA Register shows a total of 107 firms have ceased to be listed as appointed representatives of TenetLime, its mortgage network, between October 7, 2019 and July 30, 2021.
Since the beginning of this year (January 6) a total of 34 firms have left the adviser network.
Among them was life insurance broker Protect Line, a firm with revenues of £20m, which left last week (July 30).
According to Tenet, the departures were “natural attrition and in line with previous years”.
It said it had received positive feedback to changes to its back-office technology and had invested in training and support.
It added that across TenetLime and TenetConnect, the network for investment advisers, Tenet has seen 149 ARs join in the past 10 months alone.
But some still have misgivings about Tenet's 2019 switch to back-office system Intelliflo Office, which has seen users leave in the past.
One adviser, who wished to remain anonymous as he was still a member of Tenet's network, said Protect Line’s departure was a “serious red flag”.
They said: “I think someone at Tenet needs to make an announcement about the future of the network.
“There is no way this max exodus is not creating problems now and something serious needs doing.”
A spokesperson said Tenet's recent refocusing of its business lines ensured that it is “well positioned to continue to be the UK’s largest network supporting independent financial advice”, and pointed to the group’s “strong capital and liquidity positions”.
In 2020 Tenet refocused its business on core areas, centred around its adviser networks and Tenet Compliance Services.
Tenet chief executive Mark Scanlon said in June this year the company was “trading strongly, in line with expectations, driven by the prudent actions we’ve taken in the last year”.
The company said of the Protect Line move: "Protect Line's growth has meant it makes sense for them to become directly authorised and we wish them every success for the future".
Protect Line announced its intention to leave the network as part of its full-year results, published in March 2021.
According to its accounts for 2020, revenues grew by 13 per cent to reach £20.4m, while its operating profit hit £1.3m, up from a 2019 operating loss of £83,704.
Back office issues
Last July FTAdviser reported that several advisers had left TenetLime following the introduction of Intelliflo Office, which they struggled to come to terms with.
One adviser claimed firms have had no choice but to leave because they "just couldn't manage it".
According to users, the issue has still not gone away with several having troubles trying to work the system.
One adviser described the system as clunky, saying it had a habit of crashing and not working properly.
“We need to pull out the instruction booklet if we want to use it,” they said.
Other advisers said it was not reliable enough to use in front of clients, with one stating: “we would not use IO live with a client, other than the system not being reliable enough [...] a lot of the questions and pages are irrelevant”.
But Tenet has defended its use of IO, saying it has received positive feedback from its members that the cloud based technology had made “working from home seamless and enabled them to service their clients during the pandemic”.
Other advisers have also spoken favourably of the shift to the new system, saying it helped engage clients and encouraged digital integration.
A company spokesperson said: “We’re pleased with the progress to date and we continue to assess and upgrade the systems to benefit our members.
“We have been investing considerable resources into training and continue to do so. We need to help our members use technology to enable efficiencies within their businesses. That will certainly be a theme for this year, more training, more guidance, more help in using our systems so advisers’ can gain efficiencies within their practices.”
FTAdviser previously reported that Tenet was looking to invest £10m in the Intelliflo Office system.
The business said it was on track to meet this figure with a further £1.5m spent on its in-house technology.
The spokesperson said: “We do recognise that technological change is often unsettling but we’re now seeing excellent levels of customer usage with the IO system and continue to assess and upgrade the systems to benefit our members.
“Intelliflo is now embedded across the business, with all members using the system and some 95 per cent of network members now successfully using the wider capability of the system.”
They added: “More than a third of our members are making use of value-added components such as the personal finance portal and in-built video conferencing to communicate securely with their clients as well as the valuation functionality.
“We established a front-line team to help our members use the technology more efficiently and consolidated our client support to form a new business support group to better help members build their businesses and improve efficiencies.”
amy.austin@ft.com
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