Government announces QAR response

Conrad Travers shares his thoughts about Minister Stephen Jones announcements 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.

Stream one

• 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.
  
  Stream two

• Restrictions on collective charging for super funds removed

• Super funds to get legal clarity re existing practices for the payment of ASF

Everything else still on the table, but needs more time. Great to finally get that clarity. The SOA, Safe Harbour and FDS / fee consent quick wins alone will be massive for our industry, so hopefully they can be expedited.

At Tangelo we would recommend licensees and advice practices take sensible “no regret move” planning for how they might implement the changes over the next 12-18 months for instance:

• Begin the thinking around what a “fit for purpose” advice record would mean and what the guardrails might look like

• If safe harbour is removed, do you need to update your Supervision & Monitoring policies and scorecards?

• What operating procedures, threads and tasks would need to change if FDS is no longer mandatory?

We're here to help support seamless execution for licensees, practices and anyone in our industry, so advisers can get back to doing what you do best.