Solutions for a simpler, wellbeing-driven financial advice modelBY MATT BROWN | FRIDAY, 11 MAR 2022 8:14AM How many financial advisers does it take to change a lightbulb? It's difficult to say because three are still doing the paperwork, two must go back to university and the others ... Upgrade your subscription to access this article
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Changing the name of a document from Statement of Advice to Letters of Advice does absolutely nothing to improve communications between advisers and their clients.
Following the requirements of the Corps Act 2001, Ch 7, Subdivisions C & D instead of being slaves to ASIC requirements would immediately result in a simpler approach.
No-one is calling out ASIC for having introduced the complexity and confusion that now exists. Why not???
Simplifying the communications surrounding advice will not happen while bandaids are being applied. Someone needs to be intelligent enough to go back to source documents ie (Corps Act) and start again.
When I joined the financial advice industry as a (securities) adviser in 1986 'financial planning' was tagged as a new 'emerging' profession - 36 years later it's still 'emerging' and in fact it is arguably further away from emerging than it was back then!
As Sue commented, until somebody (hopefully the Productivity Commission) has the intellectual fortitude to differentiate the provision of advisory services (a 'professional' skill) from the financial 'product' issues (akin to the difference between a doctors diagnosis and then the proscription of a curing medicine) there is no hope for this industry.
Legislative changes to the authorising of Financial Advisers in 1992 ( and then the Managed Investment Act in 1994) were a clear 'wrong turn' at the time, embedding the control with the authorising body (an institution usually) - and haven't the likes of AMP, Westpac, NAB, CBA, etc. done just a dandy job with that!
ASIC has to work within the confines of the Corporations Act as Sue pointed out but they define everything they do within the terms of providing 'financial product advice' a clear indication they see provision of the advice and the product as one and the same thing. After 30+ years of watching ASIC and its fore bares in operation (and my direct involvement as the Responsible Manager for an AFSL), ASIC has demonstrated its complete failure as a regulatory body. Any role going forward for ASIC should just be confined to the enforcing /regulation of financial products and nothing to do with the provision of advice.