アイ・パートナーズフィナンシャル

Providing Platform Services for IFA as Independent Financial Advisor Company
Ai Partners Financial is one of the largest independent financial advisor companies in Japan and provides financial services through an independent financial advisor (IFA) including financial instruments intermediary service. There are two cases for a corporation to conduct IFA as a business; 1) to operate a platform for individuals working as IFAs and concentrate on providing a stage for activities of the IFAs and on supporting operations of the IFAs, and 2) to hire individuals working as IFAs as employees and conduct the IFA business as a corporation.

The company develops a platform-type business model that raises revenue through providing various support so IFAs that have concluded service agreements with the company can be active, rather than directly hiring IFAs, although there are few exceptions.

The company only conducts a single segment of the financial service provision business through IFAs, but its net sales is categorized into the two services of the financial instruments intermediary service and the other financial services. Ai Partners Financial handles the financial instruments intermediary service, which accounted for 95.5% of the net sales for the fiscal year ended March 2021, and its wholly-owned subsidiary AIP Consultants handles insurance soliciting and other financial services, which accounted for the remaining 4.5%. Most of the revenue is from the financial instruments intermediary service.

The company concludes service agreements concerning the financial instruments intermediary service with Rakuten Securities, SBI SECURITIES, ACE SECURITIES and Akatsuki Securities. Affiliated IFAs will have customers open their accounts at these securities companies and customers will conduct transactions of financial instruments using such accounts.