Time to keep the promises

Something needs to be done about the time and money it takes for compliance. 80% of my time is taken up with compliance and 20% for clients. For those who may be interested, a final costing on the time taken to learn about and implement FOFA in our business, cost us $37,000. When will this all end?

The pressure needs to be kept up on Mathias Cormann the Finance Minister. He was the one who made these comments and now needs to back up his promises.

New Government, new ministers but will we see any changes. I do not expect to see these changes occur, the new government has more important issues to deal with and not having control of the Senate will make an easy job hard. Time will tell how sincere the Coalition is in meeting the pre election promises.

AS long as we have money, we will have greed and there will always be people who will commit frued and no FOFA or any other change to the regulations that are put forward will have any effect here, so I believe and I sincerely hope that the new government will be far more understanding and that we need to have our own organisations ie, AFA and FPA to work together to be self regulate. We are spending far too much time now on current regulations and back office administration and our cost has risen to $1,250 per client, per annum. How is this helping the average Australian to get ahead and seek quality independant advice?

I agree with your statements. FOFA is indeed a joke and may I also add from a product perspective, it is leading to outcomes that is NOT in the best interest of clients. Recently several clients who seek to acquire annuities were provided with 2 choices. One option was commission driven and has now been removed from offering from our dealer group to comply with FOFA while the other is fee based. Have a guess which gave a better outcome. The commission based option was far superior for the client in terms of end benefit. So, what is my best interest duty to the client....to go against the wishes of the dealer I represent and to disadvantage the consumer. Regulators are not able to micro manage this industry and have failed again to assist consumers. Will this regulation stop bad advice or indeed collapses of investment houses ? After all, back in the 1990's a raft of collapses gave rise to further regulation which to this day and from this day forward will not solve anything. Merely giving the impression of creating a suitable framework is a disaster when consumers are still on the receiving end of failed policies created by nitwits in both government and industry. The short answer in my view is to leave disclosure after the SOA to the institutions. All including the ISN play by the same rules. Toughen Corporations Law for Trustees of managed funds and superannuation funds to stop conflicts of interest. Bring the property industry into line with advice therefore bringing them into line and exposing their massive fraud as an industry and finally subject all of the above to jail if they do not comply. Now that is a greater solution than seeking to damage an industry that has all the hallmarks of being a god send to government from a fiscal point of view while showing favor to the ISN and their cohorts.

I agree entirely that Mathias Cormann repeatedly urged the financial services industry support for the Coalition govt over the last 2 years with very clear promises to rectify the FOFA mess and to limit red tape restrictions. The number of meetings I attended when Mathias Cormann spoke or the media releases I read from him, clearly spoke of a strong, dedicated commitment to the cause. To garner such strong support with promises of commitment will now be the litmus test for Cormann and the Liberals. He must be very closely engaged with the process and the other Ministers that will be responsible for overseeing the analysis and negotiations to reduce the compliance burden that is burying the financial services sector and reducing the value we can deliver to those in the community that need our help and advice. If the Liberals are going to soften their stance because they want to play friends with everyone, then we will lose. Cormann repeatedly made comments with no uncertainty as to the strength of their commitment.If this was simply electioneering and empty promises, then they had better be prepared for an almighty onslaught from the adviser and planner community. We have been compromised for far too long, and any more delay or compromise without action will warrant reaction.