The legislation and regulations to enact the Government’s proposed changes to the Future of Financial Advice reforms have been released for consultation.
Assistant Treasurer, Senator Arthur Sinodinos, delivered the legislative tools with a brief statement, saying the proposed changes would reduce compliance costs and remove red tape from the financial services industry.
As expected, the key amendments contained within the draft legislation and regulations include:
- The removal of the opt-in requirement
- A streamlining the annual fee disclosure requirements
- Changes to the conflicted remuneration rules regarding life insurance inside superannuation
- An amendment to the best interests duty to allow for scaled advice
- An exemption of general advice from the rules regarding conflicted remuneration
- Amendments to grandfathering arrangements to allow for adviser movements
Senator Sinodinos said that in order to provide certainty for industry and to ensure that the measures have effect as soon as possible, the Government would implement time sensitive measures through regulations to the extent legally possible, with amendments to be subsequently made in the primary legislation.
“The interim regulations (i.e. those made redundant by the passing of the legislative amendments) will be repealed once the legislative amendments have been passed, while those amendments best addressed via regulations will remain in place,” the Senator said.
Consultation on the legislation and regulations is open until 19 February 2014.
The Government said it anticipated the regulations would be made by the end of March 2014, and a Bill would be introduced into Parliament during the Autumn sitting period, with passage likely during the Winter sitting period.
Click here to view the draft legislation, regulations and accompanying explanatory memorandum.
A win for our over-regulated industry. After this is all gazetted perhaps we’ll see the regulators look at other professions/industries. This is a hope rather than a realistic expectation though.
Still, a win is a win and we can be thankful for small mercies.
What a hide the unions have by claiming a royal commission into union corruption is a political witch hunt. What then was FOFA?
I agree Paul. Too many times I’ve had people across the desk from me distressed through inaccurate and coercive behaviour from people in the real estate industry.
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