On Tuesday, members of the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) voted in favour of the proposed merger of the two associations at extraordinary general meetings (EGMs) held in Sydney.
Speaking at a media briefing following the merger, FPA chief executive Sarah Abood said that advocacy would be the main focus for the combined entity once the merger is complete.
“[Advocacy] is the number one issue that members have raised with us. I think it’s probably the number one benefit of combining the two associations that we want to have a more powerful united voice to government,” Ms Abood said.
“And there’s quite a bit under that heading right now. The Quality of Advice Review (QAR) being key. But there are a number of other areas that we’ve been engaging with government on behalf of members for some time, including professional standards. I hear there’s a bit happening with super today as well, and there’ll be plenty more.
“We’ll be engaging with members very deeply on all of these issues, and that is a really strong priority for the association.”
Sam Perera, president of the AFA, added that while advocacy is a particular priority in the wake of the QAR final report, and upcoming consultation on education standards, coming together as a single entity is also important.
“We have a major road show that we are jointly doing together in May. That’s an important demonstration to our members of the entities coming together and creating the new association,” Mr Perera said.
“We still have to carefully manage the transition to get AFA members to come over to the new association and to successfully wind down the AFA, and then in November it’s a congress of the joint associations, which will be a really big event as well.”
According to a statement issued by the groups, across all resolutions, an average of 96.5 per cent of AFA votes and 96.7 per cent of FPA votes were in favour — well above the required 75 per cent.
The groups confirmed that some 3,000 members, including 500 proxy votes, took part in the merger vote.
Ms Abood said the groups were hopeful that all current members of both associations would rejoin the combined association.
“The real test of it will be through the renewal phase. We’ll be opening up membership for renewal in April/May, around that time frame of this year, and members hopefully will choose to join the new association,” she said.
The full legal name of the new association will be the Financial Advice Association of Australia Limited.
Legal completion is expected to take place on 3 April 2023, with a transition period said to run from April to June, including adoption of the new name and constitution, finalising and launching a new brand and logo, new board formation, and membership transition.
The transition is expected to be complete by 1 July 2023.
Advocacy – achievements so far – “Financial Planner and Financial Adviser”.
Financial Planners having access to ATO Super Contribution Records – no, only Accountants have access to that information yet can not legally provide advice.
I guess now we are a profession and the FPA and AFA have merged everything will be different and things will happen – we now have the respect of being a profession – isn’t that how the argument goes? Time will tell.
Note the new organisation includes the word ‘Advice’ instead of ‘Adviser’. A clear signal the new organisation won’t represent financial planners, rather they will continue to insist they represent all stakeholders related to financial advice.
If the Levy plan gets up, watch the FAAAL quickly develop a membership category for the 100,000+ unlicenced, backpacker, call centre operators who will be undercutting qualified financial planners with ‘free’ financial advice to sell their products
And who will pay the membership fees for those 100,000 unlicensed call centre operators? The product companies of course. It will result in even more product company influence, and further diminshment of the interests of professional advisers.
Advocacy for who? Advisers? Consumers? Or the product companies who fund FPA and AFA via dodgy sleight of hand arrangements like bulk renewals?
Given both FPA and AFA sided with product companies as part of JAWG, to advocate in favour of Levy’s recommendation to allow personal advice by product company call centre sales staff, one assumes it will be the latter.