June 2012: Digital Content
Please click on the links below to access articles from Ray Henderson, Alan Shields, Robert MC Brown and Matt Linnert, along with a case study to from Kelvin Boyd's article on foreign super funds.
June 01, 2012
Taskforce to keep FoFA in white knight’s sights
Financial advisers who hope a change of government will see the pending Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms watered down may have an unlikely ally. While Senator Mathias Cormann has repeatedly presented himself as a white knight prepared to battle the government’s compliance dragon, his Liberal Party colleague Senator Arthur Sinodinos will soon champion the deregulation cause.
May 29, 2012
Argentina and Athens close in crises
A deep and ongoing economic recession, a 25-per-cent unemployment rate, political and social instability, sovereign debt default and a run on banks as depositors lose faith in the stability of the financial system.
May 29, 2012
FoFA a game changer for portfolio construction
Financial reform is forcing a rethink on portfolio construction with investment philosophy firmly in the spotlight. In the first of PPO’s Education Series interviews we asked Graham Rich to outline what affect Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) legislation will have on portfolio construction.
May 29, 2012
AFS CEO Peter Daly goes but business as usual
The board of Australian Financial Services (AFS) Group felt departing chief executive Peter Daly did not have the skills to take the dealer group any further and decided new blood was required. Earlier the AFS board had issued a statement thanking and acknowledging Daly’s contribution to the dealer group and wishing him every success in his future endeavours.
May 24, 2012
AFA compels advisers to guide “lucky country”
Financial advisers should not shirk their responsibility to restore consumer confidence in the face of market fluctuations and doomsday headlines. Klipin sites research from the AMP Klipin tasked financial advisers with communicating the good news to consumers.
May 24, 2012
AMP awaits endgame on FoFA as clock ticks
The financial planning industry continues to battle a ‘reasonable degree of uncertainty’ as it awaits the final details of Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reform. The complete legislation will only emerge once it passes through the Senate later this month and the regulator underpins the reforms with guidance to the industry.
May 22, 2012
Trio report ignores threat to investors
The Parliamentary Joint Committee report on Trio Capital and subsequent public analysis of the findings has failed to answer two important investor protection questions. While Harvey Kalman, Equity Trustees’ head of corporate fiduciary and financial service, believes the report into Trio’s collapse shares the blame around evenly, he is concerned that little is said about how to improve investor protection.
May 22, 2012
Sydney adviser guilty, another faces charges
Former senior financial adviser, James Hobson, has been convicted and sentenced in the Sydney District Court following an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) investigation. Hobson was a senior financial adviser employed by Binma, which operates the North Sydney firm Noall & Co, and which was an authorised representative of Professional Investment Services.
May 22, 2012
Challenge and consider changing your licensee
The professional obligations of financial planners trump those of their employers and should guide their behaviour in dealing with practices or processes that may be proposed by licensees, according to the chairman of the Financial Planning Association (FPA) of Australia, Matthew Rowe.
May 17, 2012
Legal view: regulation won’t end scams
A senior finance-industry solicitor says the new era of fee-for-service will not automatically end the rorts offered by some commission-based schemes of the past. Principal of Townsends Business & Corporate Lawyers, Peter Townsend, claims Trio, Storm and Westpoint-type disasters could happen again despite the introduction of financial reforms.
May 17, 2012
Advisers resilient but cautious on SMSFs
Financial advisers are overwhelmingly optimistic on the 12-month outlook for the industry, but doubts remain around the self-managed-super-fund (SMSF) segment. According to research from AIA Australia, advisers expect to see growth coming from families and the self-employed.
May 15, 2012
