Independent financial planner? Either you really are, or you are not. There is no middle ground
I’d venture to say that 100 per cent of licensed financial advisers would claim publicly that they advise and act at all times in their clients’ best interests. This begs an important question: If advisers are universally fastidious about their clients’ welfare, why is the industry in so much trouble over damaging revelations arising since
June 04, 2015
RG146 training and licensing costs confusion for accountants clarified
Licensing for Accountants today launched a series of interactive tools to clarify RG146 training requirements, as well as a licensing costs calculator. The free tools provide much needed guidance for accountants who are considering Australian Financial Services Licensing (AFSL). CEO, Kath Bowler said that accountants should understand that individual accountants want different outcomes from licensing
June 04, 2015
Housing Affordability – It’s not all about Sydney and Melbourne
The March quarter edition of the Adelaide Bank/Real Estate Institute of Australia Housing Affordability Report shows an improvement in housing affordability nationally with the proportion of family income required to meet loan repayments decreasing by 0.7 percentage points to 30.8%. Median weekly family income rose 0.4% to $1,615 during the March quarter of 2015. This
June 03, 2015
Financial planning industry is getting over Trowbridge shock to develop ‘sensible’ solutions
The financial planning industry has overcome its initial shock to the recommendations of the Trowbridge report, and is starting to converge on “sensible” solutions, according to leading financial planning licensee and dealer group heads. In a session debriefing a series of small-group discussions held at the 2015 Professional Planner Dealer Group Summit on Monday and
June 02, 2015
Changing fortunes in WA highlight the dual role of financial planning
Helping clients make smart decisions with their money is as important during market downturns as it is in boom times, according to David Sharpe, chair of the Financial Planning Association’s Western Australia chapter. “The role is always going to be there one way or the other, whether on the upside or limiting the downside. With
June 02, 2015
Why wishing and hoping for referrals is not a robust business strategy
In recent weeks, I have been involved in a number of conversations about client referrals, so I thought it might be worth exploring what may be a controversial topic. My focus here is not on referrals from your professional networks, centres of influence or alliance partners. The focus is on referrals of potential clients from
June 02, 2015
Is your retirement income planning approach up to date?
Financial planners need a clearly defined advice philosophy for retirement income planning and above all, it must be contemporary, says John Carnevale, general manager of advice services, Challenger Limited. “Is your retirement income philosophy contemporary? I’m not saying there’s one right or wrong answer, but it’s an issue that the whole industry is grappling with,”
June 01, 2015
Research opens a portal to put some hard numbers on the business of advice
In mid-May the an online portal called The Business of Advice went live, giving financial planning practices, licensees and associations access to leading-edge research conducted jointly by Zanetti Recruitment & Consulting and Griffith University. Opening the portal to the advice community is designed to allow financial planners assess their own businesses and to understand how
June 01, 2015
Does practice make perfect? What do you really get for 10,000 hours?
You might have heard of the so-called “10,000 Hour Rule”, according to which an individual must undertake at least 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” in an activity in order to become an expert – or to become “world class”, whatever that currently means – in that activity. The writer Malcolm Gladwell first promulgated this rule
June 01, 2015
Lonsec: The Good, The Bad, and The Brave of the small-cap sector
Leading research house Lonsec says the plunging value of resource companies is now having a positive impact on the structure of the small cap market, despite being the major reason the sector has underperformed during recent years. In its latest review of Small Companies, Lonsec says the small capitalisation market now offers much greater balance
May 29, 2015
ANALYSIS: Retirees face doing the time warp back to the assets test ‘black hole’
In its last two Budgets the Federal Government proposed a number of measures directed at improving the sustainability of age pension provision. Central to its current solution is a redesign of the assets test which involves a return to the 7.8 per cent taper rate which existed before 2007. While the harsher taper rate will,
May 29, 2015
Advisers need to ramp up their service delivery for post-retiree clients
Financial planners have traditionally under-served retiree clients who have moved from accumulation into the draw-down phase, according to David Wright, managing partner, Zenith Investment Partners. “As an industry we really haven’t done too much different until the last couple of years, in customising either product or portfolio solutions specifically for retirement clients as opposed to
May 29, 2015
