Industry-leading financial planning practice signs Declaration of Independence

Australia’s most awarded financial planning practice celebrated a rare industry milestone today, meeting all the legislative criteria required to sign their very own Declaration of Independence, according to Tupicoffs Managing Director Neil Kendall.

“As a long standing fee-for-service practice striving to make a meaningful positive difference, we owed it to the Australian public to do what was necessary to meet the definition of independent under the Corporations Act,” Mr Kendall said.

“Being independent means we have no ownership links or affiliations with product manufacturers and don’t receive commissions or incentive payments from product providers. We believe this is the future for financial planning in Australia.

“Clients continue to tell us when it comes to choosing a financial planner, independence from product provider influence or incentive is the most sought after attribute, but the hardest to find.”

As one of the few independent practices in the country, Tupicoffs was initially linked to National Mutual and then AXA, but moved to its own licence in 2006 and has now met all the stringent requirements under the Corporations Act to call itself independent.

“We have recognised that independence in financial planning is so important we have gone the extra mile to ensure we could call ourselves independent, and meet the regulator’s requirements to use that term. It is fine to be ‘independently minded’ but much better to actually be ‘independent’.

“I hope the transition of Tupicoffs to an independent financial planning practice encourages other financial planners to make the journey to independence themselves.”