Time to Break the Glass Ceiling of Advice – AFA

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The AFA has called on members to ‘break the glass ceiling of advice’ stating the current environment was primed to lift the number of people receiving advice.

AFA CEO, Brad Fox...LIF reforms not yet complete
AFA CEO, Brad Fox

Speaking to RiskInfo at the AFA’s GeNxt roadshow last week, AFA Chief Executive, Brad Fox said the number of people accessing advice had remained static, at around 1 in 5 people, and efforts to change that would be part of the AFA’s agenda for ‘2017 and beyond’.

“This is a long battle to get more people engaged in advice. When Marc Bineham was elected as AFA President he said this was his key concern and that for far too long we have sat on this same number of people receiving advice,” Fox said.

“We have now got a whole range of very clear actions that allow us to build the foundations of growing trust and confidence, as well as an understanding of financial advice with the public, and we have not had those things lining up for the past 20 years,” he said.

Fox said there was increasing demand for advice in the market and for that to be met required advisers to present themselves as the professionals they considered themselves to be.

“We have now got a whole range of very clear actions that allow us to build the foundations of growing trust and confidence…”

“We know the demand is out there and to make people confident in seeing an adviser requires that they see themselves as cohort that is professional and trustworthy. We did research in 2010 and found that people without advice did not know what it was, did not know the advice experience and nor its cost and that has not moved. We need to overcome those three issues and without doing so we can’t attach value to advice,” Fox said.

He also stated the advice sector had not done enough in the past to be seen as profession and pointed out that around a third of advisers had not voluntarily accepted the need to come under a code of ethics.

“This is why legislation has been created to make that compulsory. We can’t earn the right to be called a profession if advisers don’t sign up to and commit to a code of ethics. We had our chance to do this under our own steam and too many advisers did not participate,” Fox said.

“This is not a journey of 12 months and any legislation will not do this on its own. It is only going to be a clear signpost to the public when we consistently do the right thing and that will take a little while to prove,” Fox said.



2 COMMENTS

  1. Actually risk advisers have just lost complete confidence in the AFA who are neither trustworthy or professional. But compulsory membership is the only thing the AFA wanted from their FSC paymasters

  2. Whether some like it or not, part of our commission scales for years compensated advisers for having to talk at least once to a lot of tyre kickers & time wasters and the uninsurable. Hands up the last time anyone got a “hot ” insurance lead from a life insurer
    The AFA & the FPA let LIF through without really challenging the FSC, just to preserve those “compulsory ” new members and the sponsorship cash which pays the apparently large salaries of some folks at AFA.
    The chances of improving that 1:5 ratio are as good as me winning Powerball next week, if I receive, as proposed, 50% of the commission I get now
    Exactly what the banks want !!
    BTW(1), since the 2010 AFA “research” we have had a kick in the guts from insurers not paying retail or group claims. Do the survey again Mr Fox, or read Roy Morgan’s research issued last week ! IFA advisers have been tainted by bad behaviour from members of the FSC
    BTW (2) we will never be professional in the normal sense unless we are self-licenced. Our future is in the hands of Licencees, most of whom are standing on the railway tracks but can’t see the freight train of reduced income steaming at them.

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