TAP moves away from traditional aggregation
The Adviser Platform (TAP) is moving away from being a traditional aggregator to opening up its services to anyone in the market.
Tuesday, February 17th 2026, 6:10AM 
4 Comments
by Sally Lindsay
In a significant move, TAP is expanding to offer it services at a national level to any adviser even if they use another aggregator.
TAP managing director Ryan Edwards says essentially it is removing the emotional or psychological pull around whether an adviser needs to abandon their existing aggregator relationship to take advantage of TAP’s services to make their business stronger.
Edwards believes there are at least 500 adviser businesses that would be a good fit for accessing and benefiting from working with TAP.
“We want the expanded business to stand on its own two feet in terms of advisers seeing the tangible benefits of plugging into a support system rather than having to worry about the intangibles around loyalty, personal relationships or historical alignment with another aggregator.”
He says what TAP is offering removes the politics from the industry. “It just comes down to: ‘Do I see value in working together? Is this going to help my business? Is this going to help me get in front of more clients?’”
The move reflects TAP’s belief that the future of advice lies in collaboration and capability, not exclusivity, Edwards says. “We want to make it easier for advisers, associations, groups, and licensees to work together without alignment being a barrier.
Our goal is simple: strengthen advisers, strengthen the profession, and ensure more New Zealanders can access quality advice.”
Past practices no longer relevant
In the past if an adviser wanted to change their CRM system, for example, they would have to change their aggregator allegiance. And for a lot of advisers those relationships would have been historical or based on strong personal associations. The old model forced an adviser to pick and choose.
TAP operated in that system as a traditional aggregator when it first started business in 2018, which suited how the adviser market operated.
“The market model was forced alignment with one aggregator. If an adviser wanted the services of a particular aggregator, they had to align with that business.
“Putting that emotional, or an artificial, barrier around group alignment wasn't helping the industry move forward. It was quite tribal and factional but it made sense to go down that path.”
Edwards says that model doesn't really exist anymore in terms of the traditional historical aggregation, particularly on the insurance side.
What the business found as the industry matured, the way groups were remunerated was becoming a barrier to entry for people who wanted to use TAP’s services but didn’t want to necessarily align with the aggregator at a group level.
Now the financial flow of revenue has reverted from groups back to advisers that enables advisers to decide where to invest in their business rather than a chunk of money going to the actual group, he says.
“That's where we're changing the model because five-10 years ago, financially it made sense for everyone to align with a particular aggregator.”
Putting the adviser first
“What we have decided to do is put the adviser at the centre of the conversation again by acting as an industry infrastructure partner.
“We're here to help anyone from any group. If and adviser sees value in what we do, great, plug us in. And if an adviser sees value in working alongside another group or another association, they don't have to have that forced alignment.”
He says TAP is offering complimentary services. “Obviously advisers are not going to run two separate CRMs at the same time. It is making the conversation about value that can be added and outcomes to the adviser business rather than making it about which group that business chooses to align with and whether that is restricting or enhancing its access to services.
Edwards says TAP exists to back advisers, not control them, supporting independence, professionalism, and long-term success.
“Through technology, data insights, and specialist support, TAP helps advisers modernise, scale sustainably, and stay compliant and client focused.”
He says when advisers operate more efficiently and confidently, more New Zealanders can access quality advice, benefiting clients, the profession, and the economy.
Wider move in sector
TAP Group chairwoman Naomi Ballantyne says this shift reflects a wider move across the sector toward greater openness and shared infrastructure.
“Historical competition around alignment with one aggregator is ending and that’s a good thing for everyone. The next phase is about empowerment. It’s about platforms and providers working together to give advisers what they need to thrive - systems, data, and support that are independent of alignment or control.”
TAP says its competitive advantage lies in combining technology and data capability with hands-on operational delivery, making transformation achievable without the pain typically associated with change.
More than 100 specialist staff support data management, administration, and operational transformation.
“We’ve built a model that removes the friction from change, Edwards says.
“Advisers shouldn’t have to choose between modernising their business and protecting the day-to-day client experience – especially because of any loyalty conflicts. They should be able to do both,” Edwards says.
TAP supports more than 550 advisers nationwide.
“Everything we're doing is around trying to raise the bar in New Zealand. There is such an opportunity for the country to benefit from people getting financial advice and, and the industry is still crying out for some efficiency and some scale.
“We want to focus on value and not politics.”
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Comments from our readers
With the mortgage adviser industry now licenced and many advisers providing advice via their own FAP licence that they are still forced to belong to a third party called an aggregator is beyond ridiculous.
As things stand a FAP licence holder is currently being made belong to another FAP licence holder aka an aggregator just to send their client’s loan application to one of the banks!
The banks need to honour their original pledge to deal directly with advisers licenced to provide advice by the FMA and cut out the middleman which now sits there trying to justify their existence to an industry which no longer see’s value in what they offer to the bulk of us.
We can still acknowledge that some less experienced mortgage advisers require the safety net of working under an aggregator’s FAP license however the experienced mortgage advisers many of whom have now been operating in this industry for 20+ years most certainly do not.
For most mortgage advisers, being forced to belong to an aggregation group is basically paying monthly fees to receive your own earned commissions, a glorified pay clerk.
So in other words you can either be part of TAP or you can pay to use their CRM, then either pay to belong to another group as well, or you are your own FAP and fund your own compliance?
If that is the case then it is good that is allows for further adviser choice of CRM. But essentially, that won't change costs for most, nor solve some of the issues raised by commentors above.
As noted above insurance advisers holding their own FAP licence can have direct relationships with the insurers so why doesn’t the same apply to the mortgage adviser industry? Again, the banks have previously signalled that they would agree to this prior to the introduction of licencing.
The reality is that the current status quo is a monopoly with aggregators controlling mortgage advisers’ access to the various lenders. Monopolies are frowned upon especially when it comes to financial services so maybe David Seymour’s new Ministry of Regulation needs to undertake a review now...
Perhaps TMM can do a survey on mortgage advisers’ satisfaction with aggregators and ask whether if given the option advisers with their own FAP licence would choose not to belong to one, dealing directly with the lenders instead.
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Aggregators simply put are not the advocates for the mortgage adviser industry that they once were, most been focused instead on their own businesses. Some because of their ownership structure even have branded advisers which now compete directly against their own members. All this talk of “strengthening advisers, strengthening the profession, and ensuring more New Zealanders can access quality advice” is just aggregator speak for trying to justify a model to members which no longer adds value to most adviser businesses around the country.