2027 Advice Policy Summit

This keynote will provide an overview of ASIC's financial advice priorities for the year ahead, including oversight of AFSLs, use of AI, self-managed superannuation fund advice, managed accounts and exposures to public and private markets.

This opening panel will set the scene for the summit, examining the commercial and policy landscape facing advisers, licensees and superannuation funds, and where industry leaders stand on the year’s biggest regulatory and legislative questions. The accompanying table discussion will focus on near-term, achievable reforms or “quick wins” in order to produce a practical outcome of the summit.

Includes table discussion

This session will provide an exclusive update on the latest developments relating to the compensation and external dispute resolution frameworks in financial advice. It will probe the case for reform of the controversial system and consider opportunities to improve and expand the existing approach.

A senior representative of the federal Opposition parties will discuss its views on the key policy debates across superannuation and financial services, and its ideas for boosting productivity in the advice profession.

This workshop will examine how AI-powered systems and processes improve the efficiency of financial services businesses and streamline the client and member experience, but also create new and novel governance issues. If AI-enabled advice goes awry, how can a licensee defend itself if the technology has done something unexpected or outside the stated governance guardrails? How far away are we from true end-to-end AI-powered advice models with bulletproof governance and processes that do away with the licensee's oversight role?

Includes table discussion

This session will present the Conexus Institute’s annual analysis of superannuation fund flows using data from the prudential regulator, tracking where capital is moving across the industry. It will consider what the data suggests about the advice and guidance gap at scale, how flows are shifting between accumulation and retirement products as the system matures, and what the numbers imply for policymakers, funds and advisers navigating a world-class but controversial system.

This leadership panel will examine capital flows in the Australian wealth and superannuation landscape to assess emerging power dynamics, competition and collaboration opportunities. It will interrogate the role for advice providers, platforms, insurers and superannuation funds in a prosperous and healthy economy.  

This exclusive briefing will update delegates on the Australian Government's financial advice reform agenda, including the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes legislation, response to Shield and First Guardian and priorities for the year ahead.

This session will examine the state of financial literacy and capability across Australia, and the role the advice, superannuation and financial services sector can and should play in lifting it. It will consider the case for financial literacy education in schools, the effectiveness of workplace and member-facing programs run by funds and institutions, and whether industry-led capability initiatives can meaningfully shift outcomes and improve living standards. It will also look beyond formal advice and education to the profession’s broader community and charity footprint and ask what role the ecosystem can play in improving living standards and financial wellbeing for Australians.

This session will elucidate the conclusions of a new and authoritative benchmark on industry productivity, asking how increasing capital flows to advice businesses and the technological revolution underway. It will consider the self-regulatory and public policy measures that might enhance adviser productivity, in turn strengthening the project to bring more advice to more people.

This session engages with emerging risks in adviser and super portfolios and regulatory warnings about the credit cycle and democratising access to unlisted assets. It will seek to establish best practice governance principles and debate the role for government- and industry-led solutions to investment risk and complexity.

Includes table discussion

This session will provide a case study on one super fund’s multi-faceted approach to financial advice across digital, intra-fund, scaled, comprehensive and external channels and its “triage” process for members. It will suggest opportunities for new models of collaboration and service provision to close the advice gap for consumers.

This session will examine how the retirement system is evolving in concert with the advice ecosystem to manage the complexity of investment and lifestyle needs for Australia’s ageing population. It will discuss and debate the role for professional advice, nudges, guidance and defaults as policy responses to the retirement challenge.

The closing session of the summit will seek consensus on the path ahead for licensing reform, consumer protection, superannuation and the democratisation of advice. While the opening panel sought to extract the delegation’s consensus on the policy “quick wins” available, this final session will probe the deeper, more difficult questions that still require resolution in order for access to advice to become widespread. 

Includes table discussion