A new licensee within an accountancy practice is the third financial planning entity to declare itself Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) compliant.
Lockwood Wealth Consulting joins Global Mutual Funds and QWL as Australian Financial Services (AFS) licensees that have chosen to be early adopters of the FoFA provisions.
The three are the only businesses currently on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) register.
For Michael Rees-Evans, a partner in Lockwood and Ward, and principal of Lockwood Wealth Consulting, the reforms allow new wealth-consulting services to start with a “clean slate”.
“As a new licensee, effective from late July, we are not too concerned about FoFA,” he told Professional Planner Online.
“We strive for independence and putting the client first is in our DNA.”
Fearless before FoFA
Even the regulator’s guidance to the industry over elements of FoFA which have yet to be clarified hold no fears for Rees-Evans, who believes best practice is implicit in the legislation.
“The ASIC guidance is really just there for the compliance departments of the large banks,” he said.
“There are those who will operate in the spirit of the legislation and those who just need to tick boxes.”
Rees-Evans joined Lockwood and Ward in mid 2012 to establish a new wealth-consulting service line and specialises in providing independent personal advice to small business owners, employees and SMSF trustees and members.
He is the groups’ only financial planner at the moment but says plans are in place for some of the accountants to eventually operate under the AFS licence.
Rees-Evans was a member of the Financial Services Council (FSC) working group on scaled advice and credits ASIC with being very helpful over its notification as FoFA-compliant process.
The regulator’s guidance on conflicted remuneration is expected later this week.
