Minister for Financial Services Daniel Mulino said the government is working on reforms to the education standard and sees it necessary to help boost adviser numbers.
Mulino told the FAAA National Congress in Perth on Wednesday morning that the government is “advanced” in their work on policy, which was announced earlier this year by his predecessor Stephen Jones at the Professional Planner Advice Policy Summit.
It’s also the first public admission that he was in favour of the reform.
“I lectured at Monash Uni for a while in economics, but I worked with professors who worked in the finance department,” Mulino said.
“I’ve seen up close a lot of the courses that we’re talking about being included and they’re highly relevant to what financial advisers need to advise on. When I look through the options that we’re thinking through, it made sense to me that we need to be a bit more flexible. A lot of the courses that are identified in the process are highly relevant to what you advise on constantly.”
The latest figures from Wealth Data show 15,467 advisers on the ASIC Financial Advisers Register and any changes to the education standard won’t come in until after the current deadline to have a tertiary degree or qualify for the 10-year experience pathway at the start of next year.
Outside of regulation and policy, the minister said he was “interested” in hearing the way the profession was applying AI, noting its potential to boost economic output and deliver on the broader goal of expanding advice.
“In the three-day Economic Reform Roundtable, the use of AI was flagged both by government but also in industry more generally,” Mulino said.
“Some of the ways in which you you’re already using AI – and which you will even more in the future – are really exciting opportunities for making advice higher quality but also far more accessible. There’s a lot of upside and blue sky in the years ahead to build on the already important work that you’re doing.”
The minister offered no tangible update on the progress of advice reform other than conceding that the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes legislation has taken “longer than ideal”.
Mulino said last month that legislation was due “shortly” and in August said he hoped it would be released by the end of the year.
Treasury had already added further doubt to the state of reforms, telling a parliamentary committee this month that work was still continuing on the draft form of the bill.
Financial Advice Association Australia policy general manager Phil Anderson told the congress on Tuesday night that “many in the audience would say we’re still dealing with Tranche 1” of the legislation.
The first tranche of legislation has created issues for advisers due to requirement of adding an account number to fee consent forms and the minister is yet to use their power to mandate a standardised form.
The association has also been critical of the first part of the second tranche of legislation, calling it “disappointing”.
