By the time this edition of Professional Planner has been published, the Government is likely to have announced the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms. The reforms will provide a legislative and regulatory framework through which the financial planning industry can become a profession. For financial planners, however, care needs to be taken to avoid emulating a seventeenth century guild. The ongoing resistance to superannuation funds providing their members with help, assistance and advice about their compulsory super is concerning.
The compulsory nature of our system reflects the understanding that most workers will not voluntarily save for their retirement until it is too late. Within this context, intra-fund advice is a necessary service for conscripted savers. Industry Super Network (ISN) has argued that intra-fund advice should be mandatory for all “MySuper” offerings. The logic behind this proposal is that providing members with assistance, help and advice about their deferred pay, which has been invested by default in a fund, is a basic service that a fund should provide in return for receipt of the investment.
With around only 20 per cent of Australians regularly seeking financial advice, intra-fund advice offers a first step on the ladder to consumers understanding the value that , casinomatrix.nets also attempt to lure new players, as well as retain current ones, with various enticements. financial advice can deliver them.
Often the “advice” comes in the form of education and information. Sometimes it is self-directed through the use of online calculators (a plug for ASIC’s “MoneySmart” web site is appropriate here). More often than not the advice is general advice, not personal advice. Funds have found that their members do not know (or care) whether the help they are seeking is Das Spiel funktioniert genauso wie Blackjack in traditionellen Casinos. classified as general or personal advice. They just want guidance and answers.
I anticipate that in the next few years fund members will seek guidance, help and advice from a number of sources – online, over the phone and face to face with a financial planner. The amount of advice received by consumers will increase considerably (Rice Warner estimate it will almost double over the next 10 years).
The financial advice industry will be driven by two consumer demands: impartiality and accessibility. Over the past three years annual Newspoll surveys (commissioned by Industry Super Network) have consistently shown that nine in 10 consumers want financial advice to be in their best interests. The FoFA reforms should deliver on this. Other published research has shown consumers are typically seeking advice about predictive analytics: A statistical or data-mining solution consisting of algo- rithms and techniques that can be used on both structured and unstructured hard drive recovery services (together or individually) to determine future outcomes. a single issue.
The financial planning industry will evolve to meet this demand – not only into a profession, but also in the types of advisers that are employed and the ways in which they provide that advice. The advice industry will increasingly seek to employ software developers, people able to provide higher volumes of advice – perhaps over the phone or via email – and of course, the current and more traditional financial planner who meets with clients face to face. Even then, financial advice will not necessarily be the product of a “relationship” but could well be a “transaction”. Industry super funds will be in the vanguard of this democratisation of financial advice.
Twenty-five years ago, industry super funds were established in part because the existing model of superannuation was unsuitable to the needs of the 61 per cent of workers that did not have super. Now, industry super funds are developing strategies to ensure that the 60 per cent of people who have never received financial advice have access to quality and impartial advice – whether through their super fund or a financial planner.
We look forward to working with the financial planning industry in increasing the number of Australians that benefit from advice through a diversity of advice models. A profession would embrace the expansion of financial advice; a guild would oppose it.
David Whitley is chief executive of Industry Super Network.
