{"id":63719,"date":"2022-12-06T09:27:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T22:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=63719"},"modified":"2024-10-30T08:43:09","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T22:43:09","slug":"call-for-higher-education-bar-for-general-simple-advice-providers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2022\/12\/06\/call-for-higher-education-bar-for-general-simple-advice-providers\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Higher Education Bar for General, Simple Advice Providers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Advisers Association believes it is time to set a higher education bar for those delivering\u00a0 general advice and \u2018simple\u2019 advice.<\/p>\n

A statement from TAA says that with general advice set to remain in play under the Quality of Advice Review, albeit in a more restricted form, and non-relevant providers likely to be able to give ‘simple’ advice, it believes now is the time to set a higher education bar for those delivering these forms of advice.<\/p>\n

TAA CEO, Neil Macdonald<\/strong> says the current minimum requirement for people giving general advice is RG146 which was “…an accreditation for its time.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Neil Macdonald…”people don’t know what they don’t know.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following the QoA Review “…we will move into a new era for financial advice, an era of growing consumer needs and greater consumer expectations. To meet these needs and expectations, we believe RG146 should be upgraded with AQF7 or AQF8 level assessed topics.\u201d<\/p>\n

TAA says the QoA Review proposals also indicate that individual non-relevant providers will be left to decide what training and education is required for their employees to give simple, ‘good advice’.<\/p>\n

…people won’t know what they don’t know<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Macdonald says the association thinks this would likely result in inconsistent outcomes for consumers, \u201c\u2026as people won’t know what they don’t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The association therefore thinks that providers across the industry could agree on a common requirement, such as an upgraded RG146, for people giving ‘general advice’, and for the staff of ‘non-relevant providers’ providing ‘good advice’.<\/p>\n

Minimum Consistent Standards<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis would result in minimum consistent standards being applied across the industry, which should have the flow-on effect of improving consumer confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

TAA also suggests that when upgraded, the RG146 accreditation, if it is still a regulatory guide, be re-numbered to avoid any previous negative connotations.<\/p>\n

Macdonald says that only a few years ago, \u201c\u2026some product providers were saying that RG146 qualifications were inadequate …[but] they now have the opportunity to call for change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The association says that requiring an upgraded common standard would give trustees more confidence their employees were appropriately trained and competent.<\/p>\n

\u201cImportantly, it would also increase consumer protection, as consumers would be more likely to consistently receive good advice and be better serviced than they currently are,\u201d Macdonald says.<\/p>\n

He adds that TAA says all this with a fair degree of caution.<\/p>\n

…What we want to avoid is a situation where consumers think they are receiving personal financial advice when …they are only receiving product advice and general information<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWhat we want to avoid is a situation where consumers think they are receiving personal financial advice when, in fact, they are only receiving product advice and general information.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Advisers Association believes it is time to set a higher education bar for those delivering\u00a0 general advice and \u2018simple\u2019 advice. A statement from TAA says that with general advice set to remain in play under the Quality of Advice Review, albeit in a more restricted form, and non-relevant providers likely to be able to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":63724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-63719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-associations","8":"category-compliance-regulation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63719","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}