Latest Poll – Good Bye SoAs?

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Do you support the proposal for advisers to provide written records of advice to clients on request - replacing currently-mandated SoAs and RoAs?
  • Yes (77%)
  • No (12%)
  • Not sure (12%)

Our latest poll seeks to gauge your sentiment when it comes to the proposal to dispense with Statements of Advice in the quest to make quality advice more accessible to more Australian consumers.

As reported last week, one of the many significant recommendations in Michelle Levy’s QoA Review consultation paper – Proposal 9 – calls for the removal of the current requirement for advisers to deliver written Statements and Records of Advice to their clients (see: Scrap SoAs – QoA Review Recommendation). Rather, says Levy, written recommendations only need to be provided by advisers on request – a move which she argues will contribute towards removing the current impediments preventing countless numbers of consumers from accessing much-needed financial advice.

While such a streamlining of the protracted advice process would appear – on the surface – to be a welcome prospect for many advisers and advice businesses, we want to check whether this is the case.

Some advisers are telling Riskinfo that, surely, all clients should still be provided with a written record of the recommendations made by the adviser. Whether that written advice should be in the form of the current Statement or Record of Advice is another conversation. The argument, though, is that a written record should still be a requirement; not just when requested by the client.

Where do you stand on this question? Given that a ‘good advice’ process will still be a requirement, and given other consumer protections brought in under the Future of Financial Advice reforms will remain, is this sufficient protection for the consumer that will in turn reasonably enable the removal of mandated SoAs and RoAs?

Tell us what you think and we’ll report back next week…



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3 COMMENTS

  1. To be very honest, it appears as though Michelle is trying her best but any changes that “ADD” to the current laws are not going to deliver a reduction in compliance nor costs. Reason being, we all know that risk-averse AFSLs will still add their interpretive standards to overlay the, at times, ambiguous laws and in-particular FASEA Standards, so NO CHANGE seen. Michelle refers to content NOT conduct, so if the advice is “GOOD”, then why not just have that statement in the law and ditch the entire Chapter 7 of the Corps Act and FASEA Standards. KISS

  2. This question is pretty loaded. It assumes we think nothing in writing should be provided to the client unless requested. I think something in writing is still important, but I think easing of what’s required is definitely a step in the right direction.

  3. When you consider that virtually no clients read or understood the SOA and that it was designed and structured by the Legal fraternity so as to protect the interests of Licensees to put up a shield from the maze of Regulatory complexity, then what was the use of it all when no client could fathom what on earth it all meant.

    ANY document that is to be presented to a potential or existing client, should be forced to pass the KISS test.

    This will cause great consternation from some sections of the Legal fraternity, though delight from the litigation area, for as long as complex, opaque Laws and Regulations exist, this enables Lawyers to “INTERPRET” the maze at all our expense and create even more risk to an Adviser and Practice Owner.

    Clear, concise and cost effective advice can only come about if reciprocal Laws and Regulations exist side by side with similar Financial Planning Industry codes.

    That may be an ideal situation, though do not hold your breathe for it to occur any time soon.

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