BT-owned Securitor has joined SMSF Advice (a licensee owned by AMP) and MLC in offering new tailored solutions for accountants, alongside a number of licensees already set up to cater for accountants after changes proposed in Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) package.
Securitor’s follows the announcement in April 2010 that the accountants’ exemption that exists in regulations to the Corporations Act was to be withdrawn, affecting accountants’ ability to give advice on setting up or closing down self-managed super funds.
Bankers Trust’s head of dealer groups, Matt Englund, says its solution is designed to be “a straightforward, practical solution” for accountants.
In a statement, Englund says accountants “understandably want to be able to continue to offer the same high standard of service that they have been providing to their clients – without compromising their business model”.
The financial planning industry and accounting profession are still awaiting an announcement form the Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Bill Shorten, on what arrangements will replace the accountants’ exemption.
At the national conference of the Self-Managed Super Fund Professionals’ Association of Australia (SPAA) national conference on February 17, Shorten said the Government would “deal with the accountants’ exemption in the next two weeks”.
“We want it to be cost effective; we want people to be able to provide advice. Obviously it should be governed by a regime of some rules,” Shorten said.
“We want it to be simple.
“We will not get the accountants’ exemption wrong. We are practical people.”
Accountants are not product salesmen. Why then would an accountant want to join groups like BT, AMP and MLC who are product manufactureres and salesmen? Please do not get me wrong as a shareholder of NAB, Westpac and CBA, I want these groups to keep flogging their product so that they can pay me all those franked dividends. However I do not want to sell product myself.