Simon Hoyle

The Albanese Government has scrapped the requirement that advisers must register individually with ASIC from 1 July next year. Although unaware of the announcement coming, ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland says the move isn’t surprising, and he praised licensees for compliance with stage one of the requirements.

A spike in the cost of living is having an effect on pre-retiree and retiree member behaviour, and super funds with a solid and accessible advice offer are well placed to help these members negotiate some tricky and complex issues.

Licensees have more potential partners and outsourced service providers to work with today than ever before. The Professional Planner Licensee Summit heard that getting the right arrangements in place can help raise adviser capacity, business efficiency and profitability – as well as potentially reducing PI insurance costs.

Research has found that the average FUA in portfolios constructed mostly or entirely by advisers themselves has grown dramatically since 2018, but the number of advisers building portfolios themselves has almost halved. The fastest growth in adviser portfolio construction is in the use of off-the-shelf solutions.

Financial advisers won’t automatically benefit from a looming intergenerational transfer of almost $5 trillion wealth. They need a plan and a strategy to engage with existing clients and their children.

The thought of delivering financial advice the same way that every other advice firm does it simply horrified Kearney Group CEO Paul Kearney. Instead, he embarked on a bold plan to re-engineer his advice firm and now, around two years later, it’s beginning to bear fruit. Where it goes next is anyone’s guess, but it won’t follow a traditional growth path.

We’ve only scratched the surface with draft legislation, writes Simon Hoyle, but what has been delivered so far is underwhelming the advice industry and super funds are left confused over their obligations. What was meant to be an easy fix has turned into a bigger mess.

Whether higher education standards can lead to lower incidences of misconduct in a profession is frequently disputed, but the latest research paper from adviser and PhD student Ben Neilson concludes it is possible to legislate good behaviour in an industry by increasing standards.

The FAAA’s suggestion of a financial advice fee subsidy is an extension of earlier calls for the tax-deductibility of advice. Both would shift at least some of the burden of paying for advice from the individuals receiving the advice and on to the taxpayer. But Simon Hoyle asks is that a fair thing to ask?

The Australian Law Reform Commission notes the length of Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act is similar in length to the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. After handing in the final report of the multi-year project, it has acknowledged what every adviser has said for years: the current laws they operate under are a mess.

Fresh from a successful merger, FAAA members now have another important issue to consider: whether to remain a membership-based association, or to take the plunge and assume responsibility for true self-regulation, which some argue is the last piece in the professionalism puzzle. Either way, CEO Sarah Abood acknowledges the association has work to do to ensure a vibrant profession in future is larger than it is today.

Academics often receive a degree of scepticism by the professions they research, but at FAAA Congress next week, one session will have attendees take a mock “Shark Tank” approach to academic research presenting advisers with the opportunity to scrutinise potential projects.

Recent research has confirmed that there’s a sizeable gap between the best-performing advice firms and the rest. But whether a business owner’s plan is to have a great business or a good one is really not the most important thing, as long as it’s by design.

As the number of financial advisers continues to decrease, fewer and fewer licensees’ growth plans depend on adding significant numbers of new advisers. Instead, they’re focusing on sharing in the growth of the advice practices in their existing network. A report released this week provides an insight into why this might be a winning strategy.

A compensation scheme of last resort really should be that – a last resort – but some financial advisers have always had trouble understanding what that means. The re-introduction of the bill spells it out.

The government’s draft purpose of super statement has the self-managed super fund sector marshalling its forces to resist any unwarranted push to limit fund account balances.

Neither experience nor academic qualifications alone make a fully rounded financial adviser. So, if experience is to stand in place of formal qualifications, we need to ensure ongoing education and training is up to the job of keeping advisers current.

Investment in financial advice practices will target those businesses led by individuals who have a plan and a vision, and a clear desire to build something that lasts.

With the ATO consulting on what services can be deducted, the profession has been given the chance to review rules that were written when advice was in its infancy. By allowing advice fees to be subsidised by taxes, the end result could generate an economic benefit worth billions.