Time is running out for advisers to make their own contribution to the critically-important Quality of Advice Review via an official survey being conducted for the Treasury by ASIC.
All active advisers on ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register have been sent an email by the regulator requesting the completion a survey whose purpose is “…to understand how the current regulatory settings impact financial advisers’ ability to provide high quality and affordable financial advice.”
A summary of the areas on which the Treasury is seeking adviser feedback includes:
- Advisers’ plans to remain in or exit the advice profession
- The Safe Harbour steps presently required under the Future of Financial Advice reform legislation
- Benefits or disadvantages associated with limited and/or scaled advice
- Disclosure documents, especially as they relate to Statements of Advice
- Conflicted remuneration, including the impact of the commission caps built into the Life Insurance Framework reforms
- Reducing the regulatory burden currently applying to the delivery of financial advice
- Future automated and digital advice solutions
The message to advisers at the commencement of the survey is that your feedback is important and will help identify opportunities to improve and refine current regulatory settings.
…the survey will be a key input to the QoA Review exercise
Industry stakeholders such as the AFA and XY Adviser are also urging their respective adviser member bases to participate in the survey; AFA chief, Phil Anderson, telling Riskinfo he believes the survey will be a key input to the QoA Review exercise.
Anderson notes that, at least in part, some of the questions in the survey are complex, such as those relating to the Best Interests Duty safe harbour and the obligation to “take any other step that, at the time the advice is provided, would reasonably be regarded as being in the best interests of the client, given the client’s relevant circumstances”. He says it’s important for advisers to consider these questions carefully, adding that the AFA has long argued against the existence of the “other steps” obligation in a safe harbour because it lacks clarity and certainty, and has a big impact on the ability to provide advice efficiently:
“The options being floated are the total removal of the safe harbour or alternatively the removal of the “other steps” obligation,” says Anderson. “Both would make a big difference,” he concluded.
The survey request was sent to advisers in early July, with recipients being urged to check their email junk folders if they don’t recall receiving the message, which was sent by: governmentqualityofadvicereview@asic.gov.au.
Participation in the survey, which is being managed by an external research firm, is entirely voluntary, and all responses will be confidential.
Click here to access the Quality of Advice Review Survey of Financial Advisers, which closes this coming Friday 22 July.
Editor’s Note: This is a rare and golden opportunity for the individual adviser voice to reach regulatory and Government decision-makers directly – but as you have your say, bear in mind the likelihood that your views will carry much more weight if you underpin your comments with evidence and facts that will support your position.
It is a very short window for Advisers to voice their views and it seems that everyone else who has NEVER provided advice and vested interest groups who have caused the total fiasco the Industry finds itself in now, have had years to wreak havoc.
What the regulators, Lawyers, Education lobbyists, Government and every other vested Interest groups ignore, is that Australians do not understand Regulation, they are not interested in complex Legal interpretation and all they want is simple to understand, quality and affordable Advice.
Now the Regulator and Treasury, at the last moment, want Advisers to interpret the current maze of complexity that even the Legal fraternity say is too grey and complex even for them to fully comprehend.
What is happening at a fast pace, is the collapse of Adviser numbers and especially risk Advisers while the merry go round of discussions and debate continues.
Until it becomes viable to provide risk advice without the fear of loss and potential argument at every turn, the decline will continue.
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