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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
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.”
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.
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.
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
A fence at the top of the hill: changing how we think about “compliance”
Perspective is a powerful thing. Ask a financial adviser about “compliance” and you’re likely to get a grimace, a shrug or some kind of grunt. This is largely because compliance as we know it has been built and framed the wrong way.
Watch the knee-jerk when thinking about self-licensing
Make sure you understand all the risks and costs of self-licensing. A common view is that the cost to go self-licensed is minimal and there are players out there to help with the application and the outsourced services, particularly compliance. While this is true to a certain extent, my view is that it excludes some pretty important considerations.