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Blog
We blog here whenever we have something we need to say about our industry.
Tangelo Talks: Andy Reynolds on supporting advice clients who have had successful TPD claims.
Financial advisers should be really careful in giving advice to a client who is making a TPD claim as there is a lot of complexity and considerations in how the payment is made.
In the latest episode of “Tangelo Talks” Conrad Travers sits down with TPD and Injury claims specialist Andy Reynolds (also a practicing financial adviser) to talk through some of the myriad traps advisers and lawyers who don’t understand this area thoroughly can fall into, for example, Centrelink and tax implications.
Tangelo Talks: What is the Pro Bono Advice Network
We all know that the power of good financial advice.
Tangelo's Conrad Travers spoke with Nicola Beswick of FMD Financial about the Pro-Bono Advice Network which is doing incredible things for Australians in their time of need.
To learn more and get involved visit www.probonoadvice.com
“We wanted incremental improvement, now we’re transforming our business”
A well regarded self-licensed business wanted to know where their gaps were so they could make incremental improvements. With a Tangelo AFSL Gap Assessment and Action plan, they got motivated to transform their business.
A Virtual COO could be what your advice business needs.
One of the really satisfying things about the work we do with our clients in Tangelo is we effectively become part of the team; we can effectively be your ‘Virtual COO’ for at a price that is fair and less than the cost of a fulltime FTE.
The flexibility of the virtual COO strategy has lots of benefits:
Variabilise your cost base & reducing your recruitment costs and time
Get access to the Tangelo Team’s skillsets rather than just one person
Drive results - as your virtual COO, we can focus on ticking off what needs to get done, rather than getting lost in BAU.
February top 3 actions for AFSLs
With the holiday season behind us its now time to start planning for 2024
AFSLs need to plan for and take action on some tasks which were announced last year. Whilst we have focused on the top 3, January is also a good time to:
o Assess and develop your cyber plan (Cyber resilience good practices | ASIC)
o Budget for ASIC levies
If you need help understanding what these changes mean for your business, please contact us.
Are you one of the 89% of the Licensee population who hasn’t lodged a breach report to ASIC?
ASIC’s Report 775 released on 31 October shows that only 11% of licensees have lodged a report. This is a surprisingly low number and suggests that some licensees may not have in place the systems and processes required to detect and report breaches. Do you?
7 deadly sins and the advice process
What do the Seven Deadly Sins have in common with the Advice Processes? We explored the common sins we see causing ineffective advice processes and what businesses should be focusing on.
Government announces QAR response
Conrad Travers shares his thoughts about Minister Stephen Jones today’s announcements in mid June 2023 regarding the government’s response to the Quality of Advice Review (QAR).
A summary of the government’s response; assuming this passes the legislative process:
Safe harbour removed from BID.
Ongoing fee renewal (FDS) removed and fee consent to be consolidated in one industry wide form.
SOA replaced with "fit for purpose" advice record
Wholesale warnings to come in
Consent requirements for life, general and CCI
Tax deductibility advice ‘a step in the right direction’
“With an Australian Tax Office (ATO) review underway to make financial advice tax deductible, Tangelo Advice Consulting’s Conrad Travers has reiterated why this would be a positive step forward for the industry.
Though Travers, who had been involved in the ATO’s review and update of TD95/60 along with Deloitte legal practitioner director James Alsop, couldn’t offer explicit details on the review, he said: “We are really hopeful that a good portion of ongoing fees will be tax deductible as a result of that efficacy”. “We feel like this is a really strong step in the right direction, and we're going to keep advocating on your behalf,” he told audience members at the 2023 United Association Roadshow.”
“I need technology to solve inefficiencies…I think?”
We worked with a fantastic one adviser practice struggling with advice process, documentation and the value provided for clients.
Attempts to get guidance from their licensee and turning to a technology solution to generate filenotes quicker failed, as neither option was customised nor getting to the root of their problems.
Case study: Help us to simplify compliance
A mid-tier licensee not sure where to start got a simplified compliance approach, 40% improved paraplanning turnaround and an uptick in adviser engagement
Advice complaints on the decline but ‘getting more complex’: AFCA
Tangelo Advice Consulting’s Conrad Travers was quoted in Money Management’s coverage of discussions at the FAAA’s 2023 United Association Roadshow in May 2023.
“Fellow panellist Conrad Travers, director and principal consultant of Tangelo Consulting, believed it was important in all this to make the actual advice the hero.
He said: “We need to balance out the efficiency you’re going to get with making sure the advice is actually clearly provided to the client. I would recommend new clients, even if they don’t ask for it, give them a simple summary of the advice. “It could be just five pages, [but] make the advice really clear — what are you recommending? Why are you recommending it? What are the next steps for the client?” He agreed with Singh that the client file was just as important as an actual advice document. “You’re probably sick of hearing of compliance about the file notes, but it’s going to become even more important. “Licensees will need to provide guardrails to advisers to explain to them how to get this win while protecting themselves but also treating the client with respect with a nice, simple summary of the advice,” he said. “
Get to the point - clear advice will win out
Tangelo Advice Consulting’s Conrad Travers was quoted in Professional Planner’s coverage of the Quality of Advice Review discussion at the FAAA’s 2023 United Association Roadshow in May 2023.
Tangelo Advice Consulting principal consultant Conrad Travers predicted licensees would adapt and lift the supervision and monitoring frameworks in place to make sure the advice being given is clear. “I would recommend for new clients, even if they don’t ask for it, to give them a simple summary of the advice,” Travers said. “That could be five pages and make the advice really clear – what are you recommending and what are the next steps to the client. Beneath that, cover off the additional scenarios that you might have considered just in summary format, then the risks and the fees. If you do that, that’s best interest.”
‘Game changer’ ATO consultation on advice fees launched
Conrad Travers of Tangelo Advice Consulting has been working with the FPA to campaign for expanding tax deductions for financial advice fees. “We believe there is a strong case under both 8-1 and 25-5 for all financial planning fees to be deductible,” Travers says. “We believe that in our current environment, around 75 per cent of the strategies an adviser recommends have a tax component to them.” Travers says the firm looks forward to a potential win for advisers and their clients.
Better days for advisers will come with resourcing, unity and technology
With a slight respite in regulatory change there is now an opportunity, for the remainder of 2022, to take a breath and think through how we respond in a smarter way with all parties involved. This is where going back to root cause and addressing resourcing, unity and technology are key.
Joint submission to the Quality Advice Review
We welcome the opportunity to provide feedback on the Quality of Advice Proposals Paper published on the Treasury website 29 August 2022. As an overall comment, our three companies are committed supporters of a well-functioning financial advice industry and see the proposal as a significant step forward in terms of encouraging autonomy and professionalism in our industry.
Tangelo’s submission for CP 332 - Promoting access to affordable advice for consumers
Tangelo has made a submission to the CP 332 - Promoting access to affordable advice for consumers ASIC consultation. Working across the industry, on behalf of a variety of clients, we have strong views on what should be done to make high quality advice available to all Australians who need it.
Structural rethink needed for advice industry
One of the interesting insights to come out of the ‘How to Regulate Advice session at Professional Planner’s Best Practice Forum was ASIC’s assessment that licensees themselves were being too conservative around policy guidance. That is, it was observed that licensees were going far beyond ASIC’s guidance, which in some circumstances had been to the detriment of scaled advice.
Royal Commission recommendations are due for implementation in 2021 - have you prepared?
As part of the Royal Commission recommendations, there are a raft of changes coming our way, including independence declaration, the banning of advice fees inside MySuper products and the widening of reference checking processes industry wide. These changes will all require some level of action to accommodate, but there are two changes which we believe are most significant that licensees should start acting on now (if they haven’t already) which are the breach reporting and ongoing fee arrangement changes.
Mind the gap: Every Licensee has its compliance shortcomings
Over the past year, one of my clearest take outs from consulting to licensees and practices regarding compliance is that it’s almost never actually about “compliance”
Conrad Travers writes in Professional Planner