There are indications\u00a0that\u00a0the Financial Planning Association (FPA)\u00a0and\u00a0Industry Super Network (ISN)\u00a0are working together\u00a0to arrive at a\u00a0compromise agreement on key elements of the proposed Future of Financial Advice (FoFA)\u00a0reforms.<\/p>\n
An industry source has confirmed to riskinfo the existence of a document in which a modified version of the contentious opt-in reform measure will be supported by the FPA, in return for guarantees relating to enshrining the term ‘financial planner’ into law and in return also for modifications to the Best Interest statute.<\/p>\n
Part of the proposed compromise on opt-in includes the prospect that\u00a0the requirement will only apply to new clients and that a class order relief would be enacted that would grant the adviser relief from complying with opt-in after four years, if they appropriately observe all its requirements during that time.<\/p>\n
The proposal,\u00a0however,\u00a0intends that access to the class order relief on opt-in only be made available\u00a0to advisers who meet minimum professional standards, although it is unclear what these standards will be.<\/p>\n
The FPA\u00a0‘s CEO, Mark Rantall<\/strong> spoke to riskinfo this afternoon about the issue:<\/p>\n “There’s been lots of rumours. \u00a0I’ve heard about the document but I haven’t seen it.<\/p>\n “We are talking to all the key stakeholders, of which there are many.\u00a0 But only one group has control over what is delivered and that is the Government,” he said.<\/p>\n “Over the past few days, we have continued our discussions and negotiations with key stakeholders involved in shaping the legislation that will go before Parliament imminently.<\/p>\n “We have not wavered in our resolve to ensure that the legislation achieves positive outcomes for consumers while ensuring a sustainable future for financial planning businesses that provide advice.”<\/p>\n Mr Rantall added that what was important was that the legislation achieves the “right end game” to do the following:<\/p>\n Consumer benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n Profession benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n “We are doing whatever we need to do to shape the legislation to meet these aims,” said Mr Rantall.<\/p>\n “The FPA position and recommendations for FoFA continue to remain the same.”<\/p>\n AFA CEO Richard Klipin<\/strong> said that while negotiations over the last few days had been fluid,\u00a0he was not aware of any deals that had been made.\u00a0\u00a0Mr Klipin said he would be very surprised if there was any negotiating done by the ISN with a group (advisers) it had been maligning for ten years.<\/p>\n “FoFA is too important for side deals.” said Mr Klipin.\u00a0 “What we need is good policy for advisers and consumers.”<\/p>\n Senator Mathias Cormann <\/strong>said he would be very surprised if any such deal had been made.<\/p>\n “The FPA, the\u00a0AFA and the Financial Services Council have all been very supportive of the 16 Coalition recommendations to improve FoFA.\u00a0 That includes our strong and unequivocal recommendation that opt-in be rescinded,” Senator Cormann said.<\/p>\n “FoFA in its current form is bad policy, which unnecessarily increases costs and red tape for both business and consumers.<\/p>\n “Opt-in is bad public policy, which is bad for financial planners and bad for consumers.\u00a0 It unnecessarily increases red tape and costs for both business and for consumers for very little additional consumer protection benefit.\u00a0 The Coalition remains firmly opposed to Labor’s push to force clients to re-sign contracts with their advisers on a regular basis.<\/p>\n “Out of 407 submissions to the original Ripoll inquiry only one – the Industry Super Network submission – called for the introduction of opt-in.\u00a0 It is part of a vested interest agenda pursued by the ISN.\u00a0 I would be very surprised if the\u00a0FPA ever supported opt-in,” he said.<\/p>\n “I certainly urge all stakeholders to continue to stand up for good policy and to refuse getting drawn into dodgy deals to help out vested interests,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are indications\u00a0that\u00a0the Financial Planning Association (FPA)\u00a0and\u00a0Industry Super Network (ISN)\u00a0are working together\u00a0to arrive at a\u00a0compromise agreement on key elements of the proposed Future of Financial Advice (FoFA)\u00a0reforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-compliance-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}We are doing whatever we need to do to shape the legislation to meet these aims<\/h6>\n
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