{"id":64557,"date":"2023-02-20T13:58:42","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T02:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=64557"},"modified":"2024-10-30T08:42:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T22:42:24","slug":"digital-tools-central-to-quality-of-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2023\/02\/20\/digital-tools-central-to-quality-of-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Tools Central to Quality of Advice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The QoA Review final report makes it clear that technology, in particular digital advice, will be central to helping more Australians access the advice suited to their specific needs and situation, according to a global advice technology company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Craig Keary<\/strong>, CEO Asia Pacific, for <a href=\"https:\/\/discoverignition.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ignition Advice<\/a> says Michelle Levy\u2019s final report seeks to use four main levers to achieve its aims of making financial advice more accessible and affordable:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64560\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64560\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/02\/Craig-Keary-e1676859709995.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-64560\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/02\/Craig-Keary-e1676859709995-250x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/02\/Craig-Keary-e1676859709995-250x300.jpeg 250w, https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/02\/Craig-Keary-e1676859709995-351x420.jpeg 351w, https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/02\/Craig-Keary-e1676859709995.jpeg 384w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64560\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Keary &#8230;the report is a strong endorsement of the potential role of digital advice tools to make advice more widely available at no or modest fees&#8230;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Broadening the scope of what is considered personal advice, with most interactions with customers becoming \u201cpersonal advice\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Encouraging institutional participation in advice, including banks, super funds and insurers: that is, organisations with resource scale which can make large investments in advice supply<\/li>\n<li>Recommending that the SIS Act be amended to expressly permit super funds to provide personal advice to their members on a \u201cfund-pays\u201d basis, removing doubts over this issue and effectively expanding intra-fund advice<\/li>\n<li>Encouraging the application of digital advice technology, by financial advisers and organisations providing advice<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keary says in a statement that the final report is \u201c\u2026a strong endorsement of the potential role of digital advice tools to make advice more widely available at no, or modest, fees.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;Digital advice tools will allow many more consumers who would benefit from advice to be served&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He notes that the high price of advice indicates that demand is already soaking up Australia\u2019s 16,000 financial advisers, \u201c\u2026even before an extension of what is considered as personal advice. Digital advice tools will allow many more consumers who would benefit from advice to be served.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keary says that Levy sees the use of digital advice tools as improving the quality of advice delivered to consumers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn her report, Ms Levy points to technology as having a crucial role to play in helping more Australians access financial advice, in particular by allowing institutions to offer advice at the simpler end of the advice spectrum to its customers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Working to good effect in the UK<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He says the report also highlights the ability for financial institutions to use digital advice technology to make their financial advisers more efficient \u201c\u2026which is something we are already seeing work to good effect in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIndeed Ms Levy concludes that the provision of digital advice does not require specific regulation or specific regulatory changes but is inherent in the drive towards \u2018good advice\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He adds that rather, the ability to provide widespread digital advice is an outcome of the recommendation that a \u2018good advice\u2019 duty applies to any person or institution providing advice, including digital advice tools, rather than being an individual financial advice construct.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy implication it is clear that financial institutions \u2026 can use digital hybrid models today, rather than wait for any changes to the regulatory framework. By allowing financial advisers to use digital advice tools, they will be able to serve many more customers, at much lower cost, than has been possible in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keary states that the fundamental extension recommended is that employees of financial institutions who are not qualified financial advisers would also be allowed to provide personal advice (for example call centre or branch staff).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt should be kept in mind that one of the recommendations is that the definition of personal advice is greatly expanded, to include many customer conversations which today might not be considered personal advice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He says the outcome should be an environment \u201c\u2026where more complex advice needs will continue to be met by qualified financial advisers, including via hybrid models, while simpler advice needs will be met by financial institution staff who are not qualified financial advisers. Such employees would be tightly supervised with digital advice tools to provide assurance to the institution that &#8216;good advice&#8217; was being delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The QoA Review final report makes it clear that technology, in particular digital advice, will be central to helping more Australians access the advice suited to their specific needs and situation, according to a global advice technology company. Craig Keary, CEO Asia Pacific, for Ignition Advice says Michelle Levy\u2019s final report seeks to use four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":64563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-64557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-compliance-regulation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64557","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=64557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}