Brad Fox says the AFA has a very clear mandate going into 2014: to help the advice community to deliver great advice to more Australians.
From our conversations within the advice community, 2013 was a frustrating year for all – advisers, licensees and product and service providers. Now that we have a new government and we have seen the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms start to roll out, what all players want is to get on with what they do best – building, managing and protecting the wealth of everyday Australians.
As an adviser advocacy association with a 67-year history, the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) is a passionate believer in advice. Over the years, our members have all witnessed the life-changing value of great advice. And yet we all know the figures: only two in 10 Australians are in an advice relationship. It’s time to fix this. But to fix it, some things have to change.
The first thing we have to do is overcome the perceptions of the eight in 10 people who don’t get advice.
We have to change what they think about advisers/planners and what they think about advice.
We have to overcome their perceptions around independence, around value, around price, around service. And we will need to prove ourselves again and again and again through our behaviour.
We have to live up to the best interests duty – not some of the time, but all of the time.
We need to demonstrate that advisers belong to a collegiate, professional association.
And we need to provide comfort to consumers that advisers are sufficiently and proficiently educated to give them the advice they are looking for. We haven’t done this well enough yet.
Changing people’s perceptions is a big challenge, and on the way to achieving it we will see a lot more change and innovation. We will see incredible businesses built on the quality of their customer service, their relationships, their communication and their technical capability.
Education standards
We will see a continued increase in education standards – not just the minimum standards required of advisers, but advisers seeking higher education standards to improve their own professionalism and the standard of advice provided to Australians.
We will see innovations from service and product providers. A number of those are going to create greater efficiencies so that advisers can provide great advice to more Australians. And we will see innovation in our service culture. When we change perceptions about our service culture, we will change people’s perceptions about financial advice.
The AFA has a unique position in the financial advice market as a community that connects advisers, licensees, product and service providers, government and regulators, and consumers. We are in the right place to grow the advice market for the benefit of all of these stakeholders; and our approach is about inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness.
So as the AFA prepares to lead the financial advice market into 2014, we have complete clarity on what is required to make a positive difference. It requires us to fulfil the role of advocate of the value of advice to consumers, legislators and regulators.
It requires us to continue to support advisers through Campus AFA designations and professional development curriculums – but just as importantly through our culture of peer-to-peer learning, collaboration and community.
Inspire advisers
It requires us to engage and inspire advisers to join the AFA, to be part of the body that is intent on changing consumer perceptions about financial advice and growing the market for advice.
And we recognise that advisers, especially practice owners, need support and direction from time to time. We offer them a network of peers to draw upon, in what is a rapidly changing market.
Our advice to advisers preparing for 2014 is this: surround yourself with people who can better you; who have strengths where you have weaknesses; who are patient when you are impetuous; who think big when you are stuck in the detail; and who can bring process when you are rain-making. Sharing ideas, challenges, solutions, hopes and dreams makes us all better people; it makes for better advice too, and that’s important if we are to succeed in providing great advice to more Australians.
That’s a message we can all sign up to.
